We talked with several autistic people about how non-autistic people can be good friends to autistic people. This is their advice.
Tag: Emily Paige Ballou
“I hope that if non-autistic parents reading take one thing from this book, it’s that supporting an autistic child in their genuine, passionate interests, no matter how seemingly strange or unlikely, is perhaps one of the most important decisions they can make for that child’s future.”
For instance, autistic inertia means that it’s harder for autistic people than it is for other people to stop, start, and change activities.
When we are far more willing to believe in the capacity for communication of animals and aliens than we are in that of nonspeaking and intellectually disabled autistic people, and extend our research and creativity towards mutual understanding, no, I have to reject the assertion that “Some autistic people just can’t communicate.”
On being angry and frustrated at the celebration at children’s “recovery” from autism, by people who will not actually bear the consequences of losing that diagnosis, for the rest of their lives.
Hannah Gadsby in the Netflix special Nanette [image: Australian comic Hannah Gadsby, speaking into a microphone. White text at the bottom of the image reads, “I identify… as tired.”] Emily Paige Ballou chavisory.wordpress.com I started wondering something explicitly for the first time recently (I don’t even entirely remember why), and that is: How many autistic kids who fly under the radar for years, or forever, present primarily to non-autistic observers as exhausted? I was wondering this as I was recovering from the end of a production a while back, and my main problem was just that I was so exhausted. If I got up at 10:00 AM, I needed a nap by 4:00 or 5:00, and not for having done all that much in my waking hours. I couldn’t exercise the slightest amount of group planning ability outside of work. It took my writing brain a couple of months to…
It’s not okay to dismiss one autistic person’s lived experience as having nothing to do with “real” autism simply because you don’t understand what autism is like for them.
TPGA is observing Autism Acceptance Month by featuring accounts from autistic people about the differences accommodations (or lack thereof) make in their lives. Today, five women talk about about the under-recognition of autistic girls, the long- and short-term effects of going without supports and accommodations, and what autistic girls and actually need to succeed and be happy. Photo: Steven Depolo (Flickr) [image: Two smiling African-American girls, on a swing set.] Autism is different for girls, and not only because fewer girls than boys get autism diagnoses. Autistic women and girls tend to have different traits than autistic boys do, and are also socialized differently — leading to many of those girls being overlooked or misdiagnosed well into adulthood, plus leading most of their life without the supports that could have made their lives much easier. It gets even more complicated when autistic girls are also racial minorities, and/or from low-income…