Seeing as World Autism Awareness Acceptance Day is coming up on the 2nd of April here’s some reminders for allistics (non-autistic people)!
Do not support Autism Speaks, they treat autism like a disease and a burden and talk over actual autistic people when we disagree with them. Instead consider supporting organisations run by autistic people, such as the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the Autism Women’s Network!
Support #RedInstead not #LightItUpBlue. (#LightItUpBlue was started by Autism Speaks while #RedInstead was started by autistic people as an alternative).
Don’t use the puzzle piece to represent autism (again, Autism Speaks does this - implies autistic people are a “puzzle” needing to be solved). Many autistic people prefer to use the rainbow-coloured infinity symbol!
Don’t tell autistic people to use “person first language” (i.e. “person with autism” as opposed to “autistic person”). Let them decide how they wish to describe themselves!
Autism has most likely always existed, it just wasn’t recognised until the early 20th century. Also no, autism is not caused by vaccines.
Remember that autistic children become autistic adults. Autism is stereotyped as being a children’s disability and resources are often tailored exclusively to autistic children and/or their families, completely ignoring autistic adults.
The terms “low functioning” and “high functioning” are generally considered to be outdated in addition to being problematic in that they are often used to deny autistic people resources/self-agency (i.e. “you’re too high functioning to need help!” “you’re too low functioning to know what’s best for yourself!”). Autism is a wide spectrum which doesn’t have just a “high functioning” and “low functioning” end but rather several different areas which we may or may not struggle with (e.g. sensory processing, social interaction/communication, organisational skills, etc) which can even differ depending on our mood, stress levels, etc.
Please don’t use “autism”/”autistic” as an insult (or r*tard/r*tarded).
Please don’t tell us how we “don’t look autistic”. That’s not a compliment.
Please be patient with autistic people if we’re having trouble understanding what you mean or having difficulty accomplishing certain tasks. We’re trying our best!
Ask an autistic person you know about their special interest(s)!
Listen to autistic people when we talk about our experiences!
Many thanks if you reblog this post! Also, any autistic people please feel free to add to this post! (or point out if I’ve made any mistakes) ❤️
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