Tag: autism

I updated the functioning labels section of “I’m Autistic. Here’s what I’d like you to know.” with selections from “Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism”.

When mothers and fathers hear the term low-functioning applied to their children, they are hearing a limited, piecemeal view of their child’s abilities and potential, ignoring the whole child. Even when a child is described as “high-functioning,” parents often point out that he continues to experience major challenges that educators and others too often minimize or ignore.
When professionals apply these sorts of labels early in a child’s development, it can have the effect of unfairly predetermining a child’s potential: if “low,” don’t expect much; if “high,” she’ll do fine and doesn’t need support.

Source: Uniquely Human | Dr. Barry M. Prizant

The DSM-V and other diagnostic tools pathologize and marginalize us, and they’re used to clear us out of the territory of our own lives in a very real way. And then the “settlers” — people who have taken courses, completed degrees, and gotten certifications — have moved in to profit from our marginalization.

Source: #Autism and its $TAKE-HO£D€Rs – Just Under Your Radar

I updated “Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Coping and Passing” and “Neurodiversity in the SpEd Classroom” with selections from “An Autistic Burnout – The Autistic Advocate”.

If you saw someone going through Autistic Burnout would you be able to recognise it? Would you even know what it means? Would you know what it meant for yourself if you are an Autistic person? The sad truth is that so many Autistic people, children and adults, go through this with zero comprehension of what is happening to them and with zero support from their friends and families.

If you’re a parent reading this, I can confidently say that I bet that no Professional, from diagnosis, through any support services you’re lucky enough to have been given, will have mentioned Autistic Burnout or explained what it is. If you’re an Autistic person, nobody will have told you about it either, unless you’ve engaged with the Autistic community.

Autistic Burnout is an integral part of the life of an Autistic person that affects us pretty much from the moment we’re born to the day we die, yet nobody, apart from Autistic people really seem to know about it…

Source: An Autistic Burnout – The Autistic Advocate

I’ve spent my whole life being told that non-autistic people are so brilliant and intuitive when it comes to social issues. Like many autistic people, though, I haven’t always felt like I’ve seen much empathy, compassion, or understanding. And the evidence is starting to suggest that we’re not wrong about the level of judgment and stereotyping we face.

Source: I’m autistic. I just turned 36 — the average age when people like me die. – Vox

Meltdowns are intense, harrowing experiences that make nearly everything impossible. It takes a long time to recover and even longer to rebuild trust in the people who triggered them or made them worse. Do not be those people. Do not tolerate it when your friends or relatives do this to their autistic children. Do not do this to your autistic child. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are. Just don’t.

Source: Autism Acceptance Month Master Post – Apparently in Deep Contemplation

In sum, we found that autistic traits influence how people use probabilistic information for decision-making. People with high autistic traits are highly driven by the accuracy of judgment even though pursuing the accuracy means costing their expected reward, while people with low autistic traits are more adaptively driven by expected reward.

Source: INSAR 2018 Annual Meeting: Adults with High Autistic Traits Are Reluctant to Trade Accuracy for Monetary Reward: A Probabilistic Reasoning Experiment

If you are anywhere at all on the autism spectrum, you have anxiety. It seems to come with the territory. It’s easy to find things about which to be anxious, but in truth the feeling seems to just be there, as background noise, never ceasing.

One thing that causes us anxiety is not working on our project, whatever that project may be. Most of the time, we are our work, and that means when we are working on a project, we almost don’t know what to do with ourselves when we are not working on it. When I am working on a project–whether it’s a novel, a poem, a play, a paper, a nonfiction book, or some other project–I am always thinking about that project. I am anxious when I am not working on my project. When I am working on it, I am anxious to finish it. It drives me, but it also drives me a little crazy. I seem to be absent-minded, but I’m always thinking about my project. It never ends, until the project is over.

And then I start on the next project, and the cycle of anxiety starts all over again.

These frustrations/anxieties are part of our daily experience in dealing with other people and the the world in general that constantly imposes on us and prevents us from working on our projects, which is really all we want to do.

So there are certainly many things that make us feel anxious. The fact that we identify with our work, and not working on our work makes us feel anxious to work is part of it, but it’s hardly all. Sometimes, you just feel anxious. And it may not be caused by anything in particular. The fact is that most of the time, we simply feel anxious because we feel anxious. We can look for causes, but how often will that be simple justification of the feelings? The fact of the matter is, anxiety is co-morbid with autism. Sometimes it just is. It is the background noise of the world when you are autistic.

Source: On Anxiety – An Intense World

As an adult who knows she’s autistic, and who has come to understand the role these habits play in my life, I’ll defend the validity and necessity of so-called “special interests” with the (over)zealous fervor I usually save for shipwrecks and spies. I’m vehemently opposed to any ideology that recommends discouraging them in autistic children—or guiding them toward areas of focus that might make them more employable in the future, as if an autistic person’s curiosity is only valuable if it’s profitable—in an effort to make us appear “less autistic” and thus more palatable to neurotypical people.

I believe special interests have the ability to bring a sense of order and control to a world that is often baffling to us. I appreciate the escapism they provide when things get too overwhelming. And I love the sheer joy people take in them for their own sake—the rush of wonder, fascination, and accomplishment that comes from hurtling down obscure rabbit holes and grabbing hold of every piece of information you can find about something you love.

Embracing my special interest didn’t solve everything. But I was able to take all of that energy I had been wasting on constantly policing myself and my enthusiasm, and put it toward other things. Consequently, I didn’t hate life so much.

But one of the things that I love about special interests—or at least the way that I experience them—is how they tend to intensify just as you need them to.

Source: Catapult | When the Way You Love Things Is “Too Much”; or: Why I Went to Portmeirion | Sarah Kurchak

I updated “Neurodiversity in the SpEd Classroom” with selections from “This Video Demonstrates What It’s Like to Be an Autistic Adult Who Isn’t Being Heard | The Autism Site Blog” and a video embed of “Rethinking Autism: Autism Support Group – YouTube”.

More children than ever before are being diagnosed with autism. But what about the adults? Some of these individuals have never been diagnosed but have always known they were a bit “different.” Others were diagnosed but did not have the same degree of societal acceptance or the same number of resources available to help them cope with a neurotypical world.

Now this group of adults is the demographic that best understands what people with autism need, whether or not they know how to articulate it in a way the rest of society is able to grasp. But what these men and women have to say about autism is important. These people need to be heard!

The video below encourages adults with autism to get involved in the discussion and asks others to be cognizant of the needs of people with autism and invite them into the conversation. The neurotypical community needs adults with autism to lend their voices and experiences to help make the future brighter for the next generation!

Check out this powerful video!

Source: This Video Demonstrates What It’s Like to Be an Autistic Adult Who Isn’t Being Heard | The Autism Site Blog

I also embedded a couple tweets. See this thread for reactions to the video from #ActuallyAutistic folks:

This captures my sentiment: