Autism Acceptance

Not a tragedy, not a burden, not a stereotype. We need no cure, we need care and acceptance.

Hey, so this was a project I did last semester - designing an infographic for an organization of our own choice. So I chose @autisticadvocacy - Autistic Self Advocacy Network. This is free to use and spread around. And please do, considering it’s April and so “Light It Up Blue” shit is going around.

it’s sort of ironic that the original article on spoon theory costs so many spoons to read, so i decided to write a brief summary for people who need it

spoon theory is an analogy

in it, spoons = energy

you get [x] number of spoons a day ([x] amount of energy), & doing things costs [x] number of spoons ([x] amount of energy)

for example, you get 10 spoons today; getting up costs 1, making food costs 2, making a phone call costs 2, watching a tv episode costs 2, etc

the purpose of spoon theory is to explain to abled/healthy people what being disabled/chronically ill is like, in a way they might find easier to understand

it highlights how little energy disabled/chronically ill people have when compared to abled healthy people, how much more energy things can cost, & how careful they have to be in prioritising what they spend that energy on

disabled/chronically ill people also use it as a way of talking about their energy levels

if you say “i’m low on spoons”, you’re not just saying you’re low on energy; you’re saying you’re low on energy because you’re disabled/chronically ill

Redinstead day 2: #REDinstead

Recently I have received feedback from a number of sources suggesting that I need to be careful when listening to autistic people, and integrating their perspectives into my research agenda. The implication is often that I would be better off if I didn’t talk to autistic people quite as much as I do.

This has been pretty challenging for me. I obviously don’t always (often? ever?) get it right, but working alongside autistic people, trying to ensure that the research I do aligns with their priorities, is absolutely a matter of principle for me…

I made this bingo card so everyone can play when we comment on non-autistic-made posts online. 

When an autistic person is on the verge of a meltdown, the worst thing you can do is put more social pressure on them while taking environmental control away from them.

Stop bodily dragging your autistic relative to loud social gatherings and telling them to shake hands and smile.

Since April is coming up I think I’m going to do some posts talking about how bad of an organization autism $peaks is.

First hardly any of the money they raise goes towards helping autistics. The majority goes back into funding even more fundraisers and research into a “cure”. Second they don’t listen to autistics. Unlike other organizations there are no autistics in autism $peaks and they refuse to listen to the voices of autistics.

Third autism $peaks really dehumanize autistics in the way that they talk about autism. They’ve been known to say stuff like “autism ruins marriages” and have constantly referred to autistic children as being “missing”. They talk about autism as if it’s a cancer, a disease that needs to be eradicated. If you want a clear picture of how autism $peaks views us autistics then you should watch their 2009 awareness ad titled “I am autism” though I warn you the video is disgusting in how it talks about autism. The video makes autism out to be a creepy stalker that will steal children away from their parents. The whole video is really sickening and I warn you to only watch it if you think you can handle it, maybe read a transcript of it instead if you’re really curious.

Finally they have funded some really terrible things such as the Judge Rotenberg Center which used electro shock “therapy” on autistics. They abuse autistics to stop them from doing things that are normal autistic traits such as stimming. This place needs to be shut down and I’m amazed that it hasn’t been yet. I’ll probably make another post talking more about this place later.