#noaba

Does anyone have a good introduction to autistic culture and such?

I’m pretty sure my mom needs a bit of an guide to Autism and I’m not about to just leave her to the “professionals” (Also known as: “I have a freshly baked autism mom to corrupt, why on earth wouldn’t I?”).

I found some good things in German about ABA as well just to warn her and have things on Identity-first-language, the nature of the spectrum as well as meltdowns/shutdowns but I may be missing some other basics.

I’d also like to warn her of the Autism Mom™ culture, but I worry that most of the more poignant texts I found tend to assume that the reader knows that Autism Mom™ doesn’t just refer to any mother that has an autistic child but to a specific toxic subculture.

German infos and things that are easy to read and not overly long would be better as she’s NT so she may not have too much time/patience/ability to read up on that kind of stuff* and her English isn’t that great (B1-B2) so it would be kind of counter-productive to give her too complicated English texts.

*Compared to someone who has a special interest in that kind of stuff and/or hyperfocuses.

To give you all something back, here’s the (incomplete) list:

Eng:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WexCWZPJE6A&list=PLAoYMFsyj_k1ApNj_QUkNgKC1R5F9bVHs

https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/

https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/identity-first-language/

German:

https://www.robotinabox.de/aba-und-kritik/

https://autismuskeepcalmandcaryon.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/viele-namen-eine-grundlage/  (Both on ABA)

https://dasfotobus.wordpress.com/2018/11/18/overload-shutdown-meltdown-und-der-delayed-after-effect/ (Meltdowns, Shutdowns and how those can slowly build up)

Things that may be too in-depth to send immediately, but that I may give her later:

Eng:

https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3876/3405 (At least this one is almost certainly too complicated but one can dream.)

https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2019-75285-001.html

German:

ABA - "Applied Behavior Analysis" - also auf den ersten Blick eine Art Verhaltenstherapie - klingt, so lange man sich nicht eingehender mit der Methodik und der dahinter liegenden Denkweise auseinandergesetzt hat, erst einmal sehr harmlos, ja sogar wie eine Chance. Dass man mit dieser naiven Einschätzung nicht weiter fehlen könnte, darauf möchte ich in diesem Beitrag näher eingehen.

Gründe für oder gegen eine Therapieform können oft schon an der grundlegenden Haltung der Personen, die diese entwickelt haben, abgeleitet werden. Betrachten wir die Hintergründe, stellen wir fest, dass sich ABA aus der sog. Konversionstherapie - also der "Heilung von Homosexualität" heraus entwickelt hat.