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TIL The Double Empathy Problem theory suggests social difficulties experienced by autistic people when interacting with non-autistic people are due to reciprocal differences, not an inherent deficiency, most autistic people are able to display good social reciprocity with most other autistic people

okay but the BEST part of the first study discussed (conducted by an autistic person!) Is that it shows that while easy, calm, mutual communication and social interaction is often more natural between two autistic people than it is between an autistic person and a non-autistic person, it is ALSO like this when an autistic person encounters a non-autistic person who imitates the autistic individual’s behaviours- neurotypical parents copying autistic children’s play, for example, apparently receive more positive engagement from their child- which is SERIOUSLY FUCKING IMPORTANT and VERY VERY GOOD because it is, once again, scientific evidence that bullshit like aversion therapy and enforced conformance and FUCKING “quiet hands” aren’t “”“”“solutions to the autism problem”“”“” and that “”“”“problems”“”“ with autism don’t stem from BEING autistic, but rather, from how NON AUSTISTIC PEOPLE TREAT AUTISTIC PEOPLE.

As my mom put it when she got sick of listening to acquaintance “A” whine about how autistic person “B” they both knew ‘really lacks communication skills’ and ‘doesn’t really understand other people’ (B has excellent but specific communication skills, and merely refuses to engage in ‘polite’ but ultimately unhelpful social behavior), and how frustrating it was for A, as a ‘professional communications advisior’ and self-described empath, to work with B:

Y’all joke about it, but let me tell you a story: See, back in ‘94 (yeah, you youngins), our sociology teacher mentioned that today was the 25th anniversary of Sesame Street. And he proceeded to tell a story.