We talk with Dr. Mary Doherty and Dr. Sebastian Shaw of Autistic Doctors International about how undetected barriers to health care for autistic people can lead to delayed care, serious complications, and sometimes even fatalities.
Something that would make my life easier would be accessible virtual health care; in other
words, NOT by phone.
For a person with heightened sensory sensitivity, clothing and accessories can make or break an entire day out; here are suggestions for clothes, accessories, and miscellaneous accoutrements that might work.
“The way we diagnose kids overwhelmingly leads to Black and Latino kids getting diagnosed with behavioral disorders instead of autism. It also excludes a lot of women and femme people, to say nothing of transgender males and nonbinary people. We also ignore a lot of people for whom English is a second language.”
Overall, the hearing aids have been hugely helpful. It’s easier to participate in conversations and less tiring. I no longer feel like someone’s spraying me with a hose full of confusion and painful sounds—I’m just interacting! It’s also much easier to be around background noise.
Being an “inclusionista” means understanding that just because something has been deemed “accessible” by ADA standards doesn’t meant it actually is, and that the battle continues.
For instance, autistic inertia means that it’s harder for autistic people than it is for other people to stop, start, and change activities.
If parents can try to figure out why autistic children have the urges to break things, and then accommodate them as much as they can, everyone can have a much easier time. Not always, but in many cases.
Think of your goal less about “doing it right” and more about “getting comfortable with AAC.” I’ve seen fear of being wrong all too often lead to no modeling. And I promise some modeling, modeling with mistakes, modeling slowly, all of it is better than no modeling.
We can be the teachers that our students need. We can celebrate neurodiversity while we hold ourselves to higher standards. We can provide robust education, equal access to the curriculum, and a life of autonomy and dreams. It starts with this…
