profound autism

autistic abuse was very prevalent in my household as a child. my autistic brother had meltdowns in which he hit me and violently threw stuff at me. i recently had an horribly toxic autistic friend who couldn't communicate their emotions even though i told them several times that my mental illness symptoms are triggered and worsened when people don't communicate, and they avoided doing so on purpose -- these two are examples of what we call autistic abuse, and it is valid as a form of abuse and much more common than you believe.

these are signs to look for in order to know if a person is an autistic. if you know any person who has these patterns of behavior, it is likely that they are autistic: you must watch out for them and, if possible, completely cut them off from your life:

- seems cold and unfeeling

- can't communicate their emotions

- has poor emotional regulation skills

- is unintelligent

and didn't that make me sound like an ableist asshole?

isn't it obvious that while being autistic doesn't mean u get to throw shit at people, equating one autistic person throwing shit at me to autistic people having any direct correlation with abuse is only leading to bigotry and prejudice?

weren't those "signs to know if someone you know is autistic (so that you can prevent being abused by them)" not only invasive, but extremely stereotypical, bigoted, hurtful, straight up not neccessarily true?

isn't it clear that if i had meant a word of that, i would've been very fucking stupid?

Mom: my son can’t talk let me get this app so he can

Son: *talks*

Mom: no not like that

Like you don’t put duct tape on your kids mouth if they keep saying “Shut up,” you teach them not to use it. It is the SAME THING.

ALT TEXT FOR SCREEN READERS:

Heading: ratings and reviews

Title: inappropriate language

One star

December 28

Review: Our son is three and nonverbal, we downloaded this app to use as iPad as an AAC device. At first glance, it’s very user-friendly and our son picked up the layout quickly and was able to use this as a form of communication. The reason I would give it one star and quite frankly no stars if that was an option is because there’s no way to hide inappropriate language like “shut up“, which should not be accessible to a three year-old on top of other words that you cannot remove. When I reached out to support their response was they don’t feel like we should limit words to children, which I agree with but having my three-year-old constantly hit the shut up button during school is not appropriate and there’s no way to remove it so don’t waste your money just spend the money on a different app that lets you have access to editing words to make sure that your children don’t get in trouble because while language is extremely important and I don’t wanna limit, I also don’t want to have my child constantly scolded because an app thinks it’s OK for a three-year-old to use the word shut up. We will not be renewing our monthly subscription and will look for a more accessible app that supports positive language reinforcement.

Developer response:

January 6

If every nonverbal kid in your school is given a tablet and the same AAC app regardless of their personal needs and abilities, every adult who regularly interacts with those kids needs to have spent, at minimum, an hour playing around with the same version of that app so they know what it can and can’t do and how the buttons work.

Especially because I keep seeing scenarios where the communication options a kid uses at home are different than the ones provided and enforced at school. In those cases especially, it is your job as their teacher to understand the technology better than they do so you can teach its use.

If you wouldn’t duct tape someone’s mouth shut for repeatedly making annoying noises with it, you shouldn’t take a kid’s AAC device when they choose to use it in a way that annoys you.

I still believe in the above when other students are distracted. As much as possible, the consequence for that should be the same you’d give to another kid being disruptive and noisy in class.

If you want kids to feel secure using a specific AAC method to ask for help or talk about their feelings, access to that method cannot be contingent on good behavior.

dear sweet innocent fefeta