If you are autistic and you can talk most of the time, but sometimes can’t talk, please use the phrase “lose speech” to describe your experience! Do not use “nonverbal!” You aren’t nonverbal – you have verbal abilities. That is a massive advantage in a society that expects and requires speech most of the time! And so you should be clear about the fact that you have that advantage, compared to autistic people who can’t speak at all.
Losing speech is scary and unempowering, it’s overwhelming, it sucks, but it is not the same as being nonverbal. Being nonverbal means a person may have gone years or even *decades* without being understood. Nonverbal people are constantly dehumanized, ignored, silenced, treated like they are not people, and so much more. Just because you have trouble explaining your feelings during a melt down doesn’t mean you’re nonverbal. It’s just not the same experience at all.
I’ve heard this multiple times from nonverbal autistic people on this site, like tayistrying and pixie-sky, among others. They really hate it when low-support-needs autistics claim to have an experience that we don’t have. Listen to nonverbal, high-support-needs autistic voices. They get erased in online autism spaces far too much. Those of us who have lower support needs or high verbal abilities totally trample over them and use our privilege to silence them, and it has got to stop.
If you can speak most of the time, you don’t go nonverbal. You lose speech. Thanks for reading.
From what i heard, the terms “semiverbal” and “nonverbal” are used to describe/by people who are nonverbal or semiverbal. And from what i heard, being semiverbal or nonverbal is different from being verbal, but some may use these terms to describe their experiences despite being verbal,
and because of that a lot of nonverbal and semiverbal autistics feel invisible and their experiences get overshadowed by verbal autistics and their posts get unnoticed because the semiverbal/nonverbal tag gets loaded with verbal autistics’ things
this post describes the usage of lose speech and how it is better to use than “going nonverbal”, and I saw it first long ago prior to making my own post;
If you are an autistic who is able to speak full sentences and talk in general, but you tend to go silent when you shut down or feel overwhelmed, or sometimes just don’t talk, that means “lose speech”
What personally very confuses me though, is the term “semiverbal”. I heard someone say that semivrbal means a person can only say few words and unable to speak full sentences. but some people say its when a person can speak but…ummm..um.. there are posts that talk about semiverbal
this post
also this one
this one about Selective Mutism
From what i heard, autistics who are semiverbal or nonverbal, dont like it when autistics use “nonverbal” “semiverbal” as an episodic thing. Like saying “i go nonverbal” or “i go semiverbal” seems to be incorrect and a wrong thing to say, they say “you cant just go nonverbal or semiverbal, its something one has all the time”, so “lose speech” is a term made specifically for describing going silent when you are usually able to talk
All I’m saying is they’ve chosen to keep Mario a silent protagonist for 35 years even though he has a defined personality so it’s perfectly logical to conclude he’s semiverbal at this point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Carol Millman, a professional dog trainer, compares ABA to dog training in this powerful expose.
#actuallyautistic behavioral psychologist and dog trainer debunks the comparison between dog training and ABA and explains why ABA is so harmful. A detailed and thorough resource for anyone for whom this information might be useful.
Excerpts below:
…
“Before a dog trainer breaks out the operant conditioning, our first task is to ensure that all of the dog’s fundamental needs are being met.
“Dogs need to run. Dogs need to dig. Dogs need to chase things. Dogs need to chew things. Dogs need to play with other dogs. These are fundamental needs that cannot be removed from a dog’s psyche, and that can result in a lot of “problem behaviours” if they are not met…
“There are many times when an owner wants me to “train” the dog out of a behaviour and I refuse because either the behaviour is fear-based, or because the goal of the owner is unreasonable/unethical.
“Before you train a dog you need to accept that it is a dog.”
…
“If only [ABA practitioners] would listen to the autistic adults who are trying to tell them that this is not necessarily the case. Because in reality, a happy autistic person may not look neurotypical.
“Knowing how to stack blocks or how to suppress essential means of regulation and expression (such as flapping) doesn’t make an autistic person “happier.” Often, in fact, it makes them less happy…
“A child who is given AAC or other ways to communicate their needs will be more comfortable and better regulated than a child who has been required to speak aloud… assuming they are even able to meet this demand. An autistic child who spins or jumps is probably stimming and/or self-regulating through movement—ways to stay calm.
“Flapping and echolalia (repeating words or phrases), similarly, are expressions and often play an important emotional role as well as a developmental role. Echolalic speech helps autistics, many of whom process language in a different part of the brain, to process the language they have heard and understand the meaning of the words.
“Yet, ABA seeks to “extinguish” these things.
“A good dog trainer doesn’t extinguish behaviours which improve the dog’s mental health and happiness. But an ABA practitioner may not think twice before doing this to a human child.”
i think it's important that research studies automatically include autistic adults not just as a data set but also as translators for autistic children because i'm convinced so much of the data is just kids learning to mask in front of their parents and researchers so if we had autistic adults as part of the research team you'd first of all have someone who could say "uh hey that sounds like a stupid fucking idea i can tell you unequivocally that that won't work" but also can be like "yeah not to rain on your parade but that child is masking and will just go back to stimming when you're not looking, trust me, i do the same thing because of similar treatments that were popular in my childhood. i mean look at it! you gave it anxiety!"
because nts get so caught up in their own excitement over how a new tool seems to effectively stop a behavior that they deem undesirable that they forget how psychology works. nobody considers that the kids in these research studies aren't stopping behaviors, they're just learning to mask and developing ptsd symptoms. we need the autistic perspective in medical science to be like "eh yeah guys you know we're capable of lying and pretending so you'll leave us alone, right?"
Ok but like I know autistics always talk about sensory issues being a “physical pain” and I just need to know like—- does this mean feeling and actual physical sensation to certain, almost unrelated sensory input?
Cause like for most sensory overwhelming stuff for me it usually just causes confusion/anxiety/anger. But! For some of the sensory inputs I feel a physical pain that isn’t completely related.
For example, certain sounds/volume levels make my throat feel scratchy (like I’m dehydrated). Or someone touching my hair usually makes me feel like my entire body is being pinched or bitten by tiny bugs. Or when I hear someone scratching fabric or I scratch fabric, I feel my teeth vibrate. I’m also recently noticing that certain sounds have different tastes to me (not real tastes, so I can’t describe them, but I will know if the taste is good or bad)
I also get really bad headaches from certain smells and tastes, which has been chalked up to a food allergy but I’m beginning to consider that these things aren’t actual bodily reactions but my mind receiving sensory input in an unusual way?
Idk if anyone else experiences these things or have a clue about what these things are, please let me know!
Hey guys! Commissions are open 😊 DM me if interested or you just have questions! I’m trying to make some extra money since the money I get paid at my job only covers gas money and groceries 😅😅
I'm rewatching ATLA (like everyone else) and I just need to say that Zuko proves he has more honour than any of his ancestors in the second episode. Aang asks him to leave the Southern Water Tribe alone, and he does. He doesn't even go back to attack them after Aang escapes. Any of his ancestors, and anyone in the Fire Navy would have immediately turned back around and decimated the tribe.
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