You make doomsday predictions about your child’s future

Point 5 from Sometimes my Heart Hurts for your Child

Over on Speaking of Autism… Quincy has written a heartfelt piece aimed primarily at the autism community, but it is also relevant to the wider neurotypical (non-autistic) community.

The article is quite long (approximately 9 minutes reading time), and each of the points Quincy makes shows how much the autism community fails to understand the autistic community. For this reason, I’m re-posting each point as a separate article here, because each point is important.

Before I start, I feel I need to explain the difference between the “autism community” and the “autistic community” The autistic community consists of people who are autistic, whereas the autism community consists mainly people who are directly or indirectly involved with autistic people (typically family members and those involved in the “treatment” of autism), but are not typically autistic themselves.

Each of Quincy’s points illustrates just how far the autism community and the wider community has to go to meet the autistic community even part way.

I already wrote a post about this. (Click Here) There’s also a great post from Luna Rose at the fantastic Autistic Dreams blog on this subject (Click Here)

But the gist is, parents often make grand doomsday predictions about their young autistic children. “My child will never drive a car. They will never speak. They will never get a job, or fall in love, or live independently.” And they say this about their three-year-old.

I’m sorry, who has the crystal ball? How can you possibly make this prediction about your child? Autistic children, like all children, grow and develop throughout their lives. There’s no telling what they will or will not do. My parents were told, by multiple school counselors, and therapists and social workers, that I would never graduate from high school. And yet here I am, an honors student in 12th grade currently applying to colleges. My heart hurts for your child when you limit the potential of your child.

You parrot myths about autism

Point 4 from Sometimes my Heart Hurts for your Child

Over on Speaking of Autism… Quincy has written a heartfelt piece aimed primarily at the autism community, but it is also relevant to the wider neurotypical (non-autistic) community.

The article is quite long (approximately 9 minutes reading time), and each of the points Quincy makes shows how much the autism community fails to understand the autistic community. For this reason, I’m re-posting each point as a separate article here, because each point is important.

Before I start, I feel I need to explain the difference between the “autism community” and the “autistic community” The autistic community consists of people who are autistic, whereas the autism community consists mainly people who are directly or indirectly involved with autistic people (typically family members and those involved in the “treatment” of autism), but are not typically autistic themselves.

Each of Quincy’s points illustrates just how far the autism community and the wider community has to go to meet the autistic community even part way.

I have seen it written on these autism parenting blogs things like “autistic people lack empathy” or “autistic people have no imagination” or “autistic people have no theory of mind” and even “autistic people don’t feel emotions.”

And it’s frustrating to know they think this about their child and other autistics because they’re all totally wrong. Any autistic person knows this. Many autistic people could tell you this, and we’ve been saying that these myths are wrong for decades now, and yet nobody will listen. The ironic part is, though, that the opposite of these myths is actually true. Autistic people feel emotions and empathy as being more intense. Autistic people I’ve found to be typically more imaginative, and outside the box thinkers. And, no, autistic people do not lack theory of mind, I assure you we are aware that other people have minds that are distinct from our own.

The difference is in expression. We express emotions and empathy in different ways, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have them. Nor does different mean broken. Autistic kids may not have tea parties with their stuffed animals, but this doesn’t mean they have no imagination. Lining up toy cars may seem mindless to you, but it’s not a display of a lack of imagination. It’s different. But different does not mean wrong.

You view everything through a lens of behaviorism

Point 3 from Sometimes my Heart Hurts for your Child

Over on Speaking of Autism… Quincy has written a heartfelt piece aimed primarily at the autism community, but it is also relevant to the wider neurotypical (non-autistic) community.

The article is quite long (approximately 9 minutes reading time), and each of the points Quincy makes shows how much the autism community fails to understand the autistic community. For this reason, I’m re-posting each point as a separate article here, because each point is important.

Before I start, I feel I need to explain the difference between the “autism community” and the “autistic community” The autistic community consists of people who are autistic, whereas the autism community consists mainly people who are directly or indirectly involved with autistic people (typically family members and those involved in the “treatment” of autism), but are not typically autistic themselves.

Each of Quincy’s points illustrates just how far the autism community and the wider community has to go to meet the autistic community even part way.

Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Autistic people experience the world in our own unique ways. A young girl with a white tank top and long brown hair in pigtails stands in a field with her arms outstretched behind her, closing her eyes and her head tilted towards the sky. She is wearing headphones.

Not everything is about behavior. Yet some people seem to only view their children as a mass of “behaviors” to be refined. The thing is though, autism is not a collection of behaviors. It’s not a behavioral disorder. Autism is a neurology, a specific way the brain is wired. It’s a way of seeing the world. A way of thinking. A way of moving. So many parents, teachers, and therapists don’t understand that there’s a reason why autistic people do things, and that asking themselves why something is occurring rather than defaulting to “how can I change this behavior” is a better course of action.

It makes my heart hurt for your child when you take a mindset of “autistic = bad” and spend hours and hours per week in intensive therapies to make them appear less autistic, at best wasting precious time of childhood and at worst causing long lasting psychological damage, all for the purposes of “extinguishing” these apparently “bad” autistic behaviors rather than teaching actually valuable skills and coping mechanisms.

It makes my heart hurt for your child when you don’t take their perspective, thinking “if I were doing this my motive would be…” rather than trying to understand them. This leads many to punish meltdowns out of the false assumption that they’re attention seeking behavior, or assume that non-speaking means non-thinking.

You say they have the “mind of a toddler”…

Point 2 from Sometimes my Heart Hurts for your Child

Over on Speaking of Autism… Quincy has written a heartfelt piece aimed primarily at the autism community, but it is also relevant to the wider neurotypical (non-autistic) community.

The article is quite long (approximately 9 minutes reading time), and each of the points Quincy makes shows how much the autism community fails to understand the autistic community. For this reason, I’m re-posting each point as a separate article here, because each point is important.

Before I start, I feel I need to explain the difference between the “autism community” and the “autistic community” The autistic community consists of people who are autistic, whereas the autism community consists mainly people who are directly or indirectly involved with autistic people (typically family members and those involved in the “treatment” of autism), but are not typically autistic themselves.

Each of Quincy’s points illustrates just how far the autism community and the wider community has to go to meet the autistic community even part way.

You say they have the “mind of a toddler” when I see their intelligence.

This phrase among others, such as “my daughter is 18, but is mentally 4” make me sad, because I know it’s not necessarily true. Not to say that there aren’t intellectually disabled autistic people, but intellectual disability is highly over-diagnosed in autistics because IQ tests rely on the person communicating typically and being able to regulate their body in a typical way.

Some people make the assumption that because someone has trouble communicating that they therefore must not have any new information to share and be unintelligent. But this isn’t the case. Autistic people, of all communicative abilities, know more than we say and understand more than we can articulate on the fly. Or they’ll say “well his favorite show is Sesame Street, so clearly he’s only a five-year-old.” But I bet there are quite a few adults and older kids and teens who like kids shows. And when a non-autistic person likes a show for little kids it’s seen as endearing, but when an autistic person does it’s evidence that they’re a toddler in an adult body. It’s a double standard.

You say they can’t communicate…

Point 1 from Sometimes my Heart Hurts for your Child

Over on Speaking of Autism… Quincy has written a heartfelt piece aimed primarily at the autism community, but it is also relevant to the wider neurotypical (non-autistic) community.

The article is quite long (approximately 9 minutes reading time), and each of the points Quincy makes shows how much the autism community fails to understand the autistic community. For this reason, I’m re-posting each point as a separate article here, because each point is important.

Before I start, I feel I need to explain the difference between the “autism community” and the “autistic community” The autistic community consists of people who are autistic, whereas the autism community consists mainly people who are directly or indirectly involved with autistic people (typically family members and those involved in the “treatment” of autism), but are not typically autistic themselves.

Each of Quincy’s points illustrates just how far the autism community and the wider community has to go to meet the autistic community even part way.

You say they can’t communicate, yet I know exactly what they’re trying to communicate.

As the mantra goes, behavior is communication. Yet so often I see parents complain that their non-speaking child can not communicate, when I see them trying to communicate with their actions. It makes me wish more parents would take an autistic perspective and listen to their child because I guarantee you it’s one of the most frustrating things in the world to not be able to get people to understand you.

Mistreatment and multi-agency failure: The story of the Bracken Family

Ableism is still alive and well.

For the Bracken family, the agencies and institutions in place to protect and help them instead terrorized them. Read More →

Source: Mistreatment and multi-agency failure: The story of the Bracken Family

wikipedia.org Article for Naoki Higashida

This is one of a number of articles I intend to re-blog opposing Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

The Wikipedia.org article for Naoki Higashida was removed. In protest, The Aspergian is publishing it on our site.

Source: wikipedia.org Article for Naoki Higashida (3 minute read)

wikipedia.org Article on Amy Sequenzia

This is one of a number of articles I intend to re-blog opposing Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

When non-speaking autistics are given tools and choices for ways to communicate, to express themselves, they are empowered to become the authors of their own narratives.  In doing so, the power to own someone else’s story and control the autonomy of non-speakers is removed from institutions, systems, and individuals.  Because of this, corporations, “charities,” and…

Source: wikipedia.org Article on Amy Sequenzia (5 minute read)

Wikipedia.org Article on Lucy Blackman

This is one of a number of articles I intend to re-blog opposing Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

Wikipedia editors have gotten many autistic nonspeaker’s pages removed from the site. We are republishing the pages in protest.

Source: Wikipedia.org Article on Lucy Blackman (3 minute read)

wikipedia.org Article on Tito Mukhopadhyay

This is one of a number of articles I intend to re-blog opposing Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

Tito Mukhopadhyay is a non-speaking autistic author and poet. His page was removed by Wikipedia vandals. In protest, The Aspergian is publishing them here.

Source: wikipedia.org Article on Tito Mukhopadhyay