Autistic teacher running a podcast, sharing autistic voices and perspectives to fellow educators, other professionals, and allies, as part of InterACTT. She/her
I'm on most podcast platforms or at https://t.co/5hZ7ZyDGaQ - I've done episodes on masking (& the harms it can have), the problems with functioning labels, issues with racism/sexism in autism research, and such. Transcripts for each ep are linked in the show notes.
However autistic people want to describe themselves is totally valid. But it’s so frustrating to keep being told that your preferred way of describing yourself is wrong. By non-autistics. Especially on a thread you’ve written explaining just that!
Not me writing a thread about what I’m fed up of hearing as an autistic person, only to have non-autistic people comment on it that they believe ‘autistic’ is offensive and objectifying, and ‘has autism’ is better. Something I talk about in the thread as fed up of hearing. 😭
Society: autistic people are poor communicators.
Autistic me: *I say what I mean and I mean what I say, use precise and direct language, am transparent, share important details, use grammar/punctuation in text and script conversations so I won’t pause, stumble or miss anything*.
Pressed submit today on a paper that we hope will go some way towards improving understanding of autism among healthcare providers & removing these barriers.
With @DoctorsAutistic research lead, @Autistic_Doc
New addition to my "cool autistics you should know about" list is my favorite living author for the last decade! Seriously her works are amazing and her characters feel like my dear friends, highly recommend!
Masking is not one size fits all. If I seem neurotypical to you, it's not necessarily that I'm masking, it can just be that I am not engaged, or that my subroutines are keeping me from seeming like myself (IE, I'm half here, half in some fantasy location, documenting a war).
@seananmcguire ...my deep seated feeling that your characters are my dear friends is suddenly making so much more sense! (You're literally my favorite living author)
Is there a "no body" rule where autistic people need to work in a room with nobody observing them and in an environment completely controlled by themself?
I'm significantly less burnt out because of working remotely for this reason.
I've really appreciated the #ActuallyAutistic and #DisabilityTwitter spaces here and am worried about the platform - is there a general consensus on spaces to move to with more solid ground?
Before Twitter implodes or disappears, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone in the autistic community who welcomed me to the community, provided resources to jump start from, and shared their own experiences.
We've done a lot as a community that I can say I'm proud of.
We know that the ‘if you’re not looking at me, you’re not listening’ rhetoric is out-dated and incorrect. So many students (especially those with autism or ADHD) learn, listen and focus better whilst fidgeting, doodling, or doing another activity.
Honestly this whole thing reads as:
"Which ones have human rights that we care about as people and which ones don't?
We need to know so we can figure out which ones we can 'treat' - and by 'treat' I mean experiment on (improve research) and do ABA on to 'help' their autism."
PBS ('Positive Behaviour Support') is a harmful ABA-based behavioural intervention used on vulnerable children.
Planned Ignoring is used as a tactic to 'manipulate the environment' of the victim, to change their behaviour.
Some of us know what that's like. 😥
#PBSAwarenessDay
And, sure, there's the "I wasn't talking about disabled ppl" defense, but if you were talking about things disabled ppl need while forgetting that disabled ppl exist, that's kinda the problem in a nutshell.
Again, just do better.
Don't like how capitalism has sold disabled ppl our means for survival? Neither do we. You'd think that this would be common ground, but the solutions the left offers usually range from "don't be disabled" to "stop existing". Which is... uh, not great.