Heya friendly reminder since it’s getting close to April
If you know someone who is autistic and love them dearly pls do NOT donate to autism speaks
If you care about autistic people at all do NOT donate to A$
If you do wanna donate tho to actually help autistic people, try ASAN (autistic self advocacy network) [autisticadvocacy.org/?theme=active]
Or Autism Women’s Network, or AASPIRE (doing actually useful research).
Tag: autistic
Heya friendly reminder since it’s getting close to April
If you know someone who is autistic and love them dearly pls do NOT donate to autism speaks
If you care about autistic people at all do NOT donate to A$
If you do wanna donate tho to actually help autistic people, try ASAN (autistic self advocacy network) [autisticadvocacy.org/?theme=active]
Or Autism Women’s Network, or AASPIRE (doing actually useful research).
Be kind to yourself. Stop telling yourself that whatever you are struggling with “should” be easy. If something is hard for you, it is hard for you. There are probably Reasons, though those may just be how you are wired. Acknowledge these things. When you finish something hard, be proud! Celebrate a little.
And really, just stop saying “should” to yourself about your thoughts and feelings in any context. You feel how you feel. The things in your head are the things in your head. You can’t change either directly through sheer force of will. You can only change what you do. Stop beating yourself up for who and what you are right now–it isn’t productive. Focus on moving forward.
“Are You Angry With Me?”: Dating as an Autistic Woman
The Pseudo Logic of “Not Autistic Enough”
Recently, I was told by a parent of a child on the autism spectrum that I am “not significantly enough affected by autism to be able to understand real autism” and therefore should stop speaking out about autism. Some aspects of my personal history (Endow…
(Image description: A partial screenshot of a blog post. The title reads “How I reduced screaming and verbal stimming in my child with autism”, and below that is a colour photograph of a hand holding a rectangular plastic “clicker” device.)
[snip]
I don’t agree with everything this lady did, especially the correction of verbal stimming, but I think the basis of this is fairly good practice with any child. You reward good behaviors and correct unwanted behaviors, which can be done through time-outs, taking away something of value to the child, or simply ignoring them. People don’t like hearing about methods that sound like dog training, but, as a dog trainer, I’ve seen firsthand that the minds of dogs and children are pretty darn similar, and they can usually be taught in similar manners. In my child development class, we talked about how some speech therapists will utilize positive reinforcements to encourage speech in autistic children, basically training them to talk. They started out rewarding any noise, and then slowly specified to rewarding words, and then rewarding sentences. The clicker seems awful, but it’s actually a good tool to phase out food as a reward, while still giving a reward. This may have been a really old method, but it worked. I don’t think this is an attempt to “cure” a child, but to effectively teach them more appropriate behaviors, like communication. Personally, I would think it’s really important to teach effective communication, for the sake of the child. Obviously, the child needs something, they’re trying to communicate something, but can’t do so in a way that their caregivers can understand. Is it so wrong to teach children how to express themselves so that they can fulfill their wants and needs?
I’m going to go ahead and be blunt here.
Social skills: noticing when repetition is communication
So there’s this dynamic:
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: I *know* that. It’s hot in here.
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: I already explained to you that it’s hot in here!
Autistic person: The door is open!
Other person: Why do you have to repeat things all the time?!
Often when this happens, what’s really going on is that the autistic person is trying to communicate something, and they’re not being understood. The other person things that they are understanding and responding, and that the autistic person is just repeating the same thing over and over either for no reason or because they are being stubborn and inflexible and obnoxious and pushy.
When what’s really happening is that the autistic person is not being understood, and they are communicating using the words they have. There’s a NT social expectation that if people aren’t being understood, they should change their words and explain things differently. Sometimes autistic people aren’t capable of doing this without help.
So, if this is happening, assume it’s communication and try to figure out what’s being communicated. If you’re the one with more words, and you want the communication to happen in words, then you have to provide words that make communication possible. For example:
Other person: Do you want the door to be closed, or are you saying something else?
Autistic person: Something else
Other person: Do you want to show me something outside, or something else?
Autistic person: Something else
Other person: Are you worried about something that might happen, or something else?
Autistic person: Worried
Other person: Are you worried that something will come in, or that something will go out?
Autistic person: Baby
Other person: She’s in her crib, and the baby gate is up. Is that ok, or is there still a problem?
Autistic person: ok
Holy fuck.
This changes everything.
*leaves for reference*
they call themselves
full of hopethey hope some day
you will become humanwith help
with caring
with love
with proper training
they hope someday you will become
The Right Kind of Personyou already are.
you already arethey hope for all
the wrong things
There are many things I love about Phryne Fisher. One of the biggies is how much she likes and is protective of women.
And one of my favourites:
An autistic, academically gifted university student in an otherwise all-male student body is framed, stalked, bullied and slandered.
Phryne doesn’t lay the blame on her, fixate on her differences or say her treatment is justifiable. She imitates her behaviour to understand it, opens up her home as a safe haven, and tries to see the world from the girl’s perspective rather than deciding to coach her to pass.
Video on Iris Grace
Iris Grace Painting5 year old Iris Grace is a talented Autistic painter whose artwork has thrilled millions people all over the world. Iris, who is mostly non speaking young, lives in the UK. Visit her page to view her phenomenal work.
knitting in the dark 