A busker plays music for a blind autistic girl sitting in a wheelchair. She’s being allowed to stim (flapping and rubbing her shirt) and respond to the music her own natural way. The busker places her hand on the guitar to let her see what is creating the music, and she smiles as he sings to her.
They made a connection.
That is autism acceptance.
Take note. Many autistic people will open up to you like a flower if you gently connect with them in ways that work for them instead of forcing them to connect with you in ways that only work for you.
I hope that sweet kid grows up to be a musician or artist! :)
(Source: iwillnotdieamonster, via the-ghost-who-sold-the-world)
An ad about understanding autism that changes as you move
I looked into the organization that made this ad (national autistic society) and found out that their website actually features posts written by autistic people to persuade people that rather than “curing” autism, the differences among people should be celebrated and theyre primarily recommended to parents learning with new diagnoses :^)
“I’m not naughty, I’m autistic” would’ve changed my life as a kid.
okay but can we also just appreciate how accurately they managed to visually represent what overstimulation feels like?
This ad is 11/10 👌🏼
Accessibility success of the day #19
This is a great example of how we might spread autism awareness without spreading ableism. Good to see that some organizations get it right.
(Source: klapollo, via pancake-angst)
Look Out! I'm Going Off!
The government is forming a committee concerning one of my rant buttons.
Read the title. You know what this is.
Challenge #02590-G033: Let’s Pretend For a While
There are people who will shout from wherever they can find to shout from that autism isn’t a disability. That it should be celebrated. And I have to wonder if those people have ever found themselves so upset they couldn’t talk, so frustrated that they couldn’t control where their hands went, movements jerky, not even able to prepare a hot breakfast out of the knowledge that they’d burn themselves accidentally if they didn’t calm down first. If that’s ever happened to them five days out of seven for a month or two. Do they know that floating feeling that comes of too much rage too fast and holding back a meltdown until they’re AWAY from everyone? Of having to shove a note into their partner’s face to watch the kids while they go to a quiet room to be alone so they can cry undisturbed until their emotions are back to something manageable and words make sense again?
Funny thing is, even with all of that and more, I’m still “high functioning”. So, tell me again how I’m not disabled. – Anon Guest
[AN: Speaking as a “mostly functioning” Autiste, I know the cure for all of these is more education about how to help the Autiste in question.]
When you break down how people talk about a perceived affliction, you get more of an education about it. Disability - from ‘dis’ - a prefix implying a lack or a broken state of the latter half, 'ability’. The lack of an ability, or a broken state of ability. High or low function. Function, the capability of an item being useful in some way to intelligent beings around it.
True evil begins when you treat people like things, wrote a philosopher of Human nature. He was right, of course. When people talk of other people in terms of their 'use’, their 'usefulness’, how they could be of profit… those people who are talked about become like things. They are no longer people.
When you treat people like things, those people get angry. It’s perfectly natural. Stresses not even given to a “normal”[1] person build up, like drops of water into a pool. Some can handle more. Many handle less. Ridicule, mockery, and other micro-aggressions build up alongside the more “normal” stresses until complete collapse becomes an inevitability.
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Google and autism speaks have teamed up to create a database of DNA to basically eventually eradicate autism.
This is literally eugenics. Attempting to eradicate us wether it’s through violence or through progressively trying to remove us from the gene pool is fucking eugenics and the fact that more people aren’t talking about it concerning.
Here’s a link to the site if you want “proof” and if you don’t understand why autism speaks is bad, look it up on ecosia or some other search engine.
This is just so wrong on so many levels but… Am I the only person who’s totally effed up over the fact that “MSSNG” seems a lot like “missing” as in “missing child” as in how they fearmonger that autism has “stolen” or trapped a child?
It’s meant to. It’s supposed to be something like “missing link”. You know, like the “missing link” between monkeys and humans. The parallel they’re drawing there isn’t a coincidence
(via dualityandsuch)
On the Care and Maintenance of Larval Autistes
Not all larval Autiste needs are covered, but these are some of the very basics.
What is Time?
I am temporally challenged. I am Autistic. This might be a comorb that more Autistes share.
Let’s compare notes.
8 Things Autistic People Want You To Know
1. Autism is a fundamental part of who we are and how we experience the world and it cannot be separated from who we are as people. Autism is not something which is clearly separated from our identities and our personalities - it’s something which affects every aspect of how we think about, experience and interact with the world around us. Autism isn’t something we have or something we’re suffering from, it’s something we are. For the vast majority of autistic people, autism is a part of our identity which means that despite common belief most of us prefer to be called “autistic” as opposed to “people with autism.” Do not tell us that we only have value if we can separate our identities and our personalities from autism.
2. The vast majority of autistic people do not want a cure, we want acceptance and accommodations. Do not put your time and money into researching how to cure autism and how to prevent it, put time and money into accommodating and accepting autistic people. We do not wish to become neurotypical, we wish to change society so that we can be accommodated, accepted and included as autistic people. Our goal isn’t to become as close to neurotypical as possible, it is to get the opportunity to live happy, fulfilling lives as autistic people. It is society that needs to chance, not us.
3. We do not support Autism Speaks or their campaign #LightItUpBlue and neither should you. If you want to support autistic people, check out ASAN or Autism Women’s Network instead. If you don’t know why autistic people don’t support Autism Speaks, check out the many resources linked in this post.
4. Functioning labels are at best inaccurate and at worst actively harmful. Functioning labels (claiming that some autistic people are “high-functioning” while others are “low-functioning”) do more harm than good, not just because they aren’t able to give you an accurate impression of what supports an individual autistic person needs but because they’re mainly used to either silence or invalidate autistic people. Autistic people who speak up about the issues concerning them are labelled “high-functioning” to invalidate what they have to say as being inaccurate and irrelevant for other autistic people and so-called “low-functioning” autistic people are being silenced and spoken over because they are written off as too ‘low-functioning’ to have nuanced, relevant opinions or even communicate at all. Instead of forcing autistic people into one of two boxes, name the specific issues or strengths that you are referring to when you’re calling them low-functioning or high-functioning. Are they non-verbal? Say that instead of calling them low-functioning. Are they able to manage a job? Say that instead of calling them high-functioning.
5. Non-verbal autistic people can and do learn to communicate using other communication forms than verbal speech and they’re all individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, wants and opinions. You do not get to speak on behalf of non-verbal autistic people. You do not get to assume that you know exactly what they think, want and feel, especially not when you have never made any effort to communicate with any of them. Instead of assuming that you know what non-verbal autistic people think and feel, try listening to what they have to say by reading the words of some non-verbal autistic people such as @lysikan or Amy Sequenzia or Emma Zurcher-Long.
6. Applied Behavior Analysis, the most widespread and well-known therapy for autistic children, does more harm than good. The goal of ABA therapy is to train and force autistic people into hiding their autistic traits by all means possible as if passing for neurotypical should be the goal of all autistic people regardless of what consequences it might have for their general well-being and their mental health. If you don’t see why that is a problem, check out this masterpost by @neurowonderful.
7. People diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome are just as autistic as people diagnosed with other variants of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Aspergers is autism and to emphasize this, aspergers and other variants of autism have been united under a broader diagnosis called “autism spectrum disorder” in the DSM-5, Back when aspergers was a separate diagnosis, the only difference between whether you got diagnosed with aspergers or autism was whether you spoke before you were three years old - something which says approximately nothing about your struggles and abilities later in life. The common misconception that aspergers and autism is two different things is just that - a misconception.
8. If you want to learn more about autism, listen to autistic people - not our parents, our siblings, our therapists our or caregivers. Autistic people are the ones who know the most about being autistic, so if you want to learn about autism we’re the ones you should ask. If you want to learn more about the different aspects of autism, @neurowonderful‘s youtube series “Ask An Autistic” is a good place to start. Here is an index over all the episodes so that you can easily find the topic you want to learn about. You can also visit @askanautistic where autistic people are ready to answer whatever questions you may have about autism.
Please reblog this post. It’s time tumblr starts listening to autistic people.
April is autism awareness month and this post is here to counter some of the many misconceptions people have about autism and what it means to be an ally to autistic people. This April, make an effort to listen to autistic people and to boost our voices - you can start by sharing this post with your followers.
(via bonehandledknife)