#neuroatypical

[shakespearenatural]

When someone does something and is waiting for your reaction, but you're autistic and your face doesn't convey emotions very well :

[disabled-dippy]

Long ass rant incoming:

I recently started my clinical working with very high support needs autistic kids. This is not the first time I’ve worked with disabled students, but this is the first time I’ve worked so in-depth with them. I’m interacting with them for 7+ hours a day, constantly talking to them, helping them learn and develop new skills, taking them to gym and art and all sorts of other things. And this has really solidified the belief I have that 99% of neurotypical who think they know the first thing about autism do not know a damn thing about it.

There are so many people who are literally raging hate campaigns against literal children just because they’re autistic. “You just don’t get what it’s like having to parent them,” “they’re so difficult,” “they can never learn,” “they can’t contribute anything to society,” “they’re missing something inside.”

None of that is true in the fucking slightest. I knew this before, but it has become INFINITELY more apparent. My heart hurts for these kids because it’s so obvious sometimes that people have never even tried to get to know or understand them. They think there’s nothing going on in their heads, that they’re incapable of love, that they can’t learn, meanwhile these are some of the smartest, kindest, and most caring kids I’ve ever been around.

Yes, HSN autism has its challenges. Yes, it can be hard to parent or teach a child with profound needs. Yes, they often need much more attention and care and need help with things their allistic peers do not need help with. But to say that they are incapable of love or learning or that they are “missing something” is completely fucking untrue.

If they are incapable of showing love, then why do they notice when the teachers are upset? Why do they hug us? Why do they offer us their snacks or their treasured toys or stuffed animals? Why do they become distressed when other students are crying and try to help them? Why do they run to us in the mornings and cry at dismissal?

If they are incapable of learning, then how did they learn to use felt boards and AAC devices and sign language? Why are we constantly updating their learning goals because they keep hitting them? Why are they able to learn all the routines we have in the classroom?

I feel so much empathy for these kids because I know life’s been hard to them. I can see it on their faces, in their body language. I can tell that their boundaries have been repeatedly violated, because they are shocked when we listen to their discomforts and their fears. They expect us to keep pushing on with their lessons even when they are upsetting or cause them pain.

We regularly pause when we notice they’re distressed or distracted and it’s clear that they don’t expect us to. If I could describe to you the shock that one student experienced when they said they wanted to play during a lesson, and we found the time to let them play instead of pushing on and insisting it was learning time. Another student cried while we were brushing their hair and was shocked that we took that as a cue to stop and give them a break and let them play with their comfort toy.

We’ve stopped so many meltdowns just by giving students the chance to communicate what is bothering them. People complain that meltdowns are unavoidable, but then they don’t take the time to give the person the opportunity to communicate or try to figure out what’s bothering them. I’d say we avoid a good 80% of the potential meltdowns in our classroom literally just by understanding that these are kids with complex needs who just want a way to communicate what’s wrong.

It just makes me so mad that people cannot see this and think the autistic label means kids are irreparably damaged or some stupid shit like that. Treating these kids like actual human beings is an alien concept to most people. We’re not “miracle workers” or “breaking through the autism” or whatever other ableist bullshit people try to claim. We’re just treating these kids like normal fucking people.

This shit pisses me off so bad. Protect autistic kids (AND autistic adults), especially HSN autistics, because they are so so vulnerable and the world hates them for existing.

[bitchesgetriches]

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD

My 25 tried and true tips for how you can defeat distraction, stay focused, and maximize productivity while working from home with ADHD.

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD

[giftedsupport]

(source)

[fallenfromthedeadstars]

I'm not afraid to say my queer identity is 100% linked to me being autistic, and I wouldn't be any of it if I was neurotypical [bold and blue text : 100% linked to me being autistic, and I wouldn't be any of it if I was neurotypical]. It's not discrediting the community, or watering it down, it's simply the truth. Autism alters how I understand society and therefore myself, how I interpret rules, how I navigate this life, how I create relationships with others.

If I was neurotypical, I don't think I would be transgender or aspec. I don't think I would be nonbinary, alterhuman/non-human. I don't think I would be on the asexual spectrum, the aromantic spectrum, the afamilial spectrum, the aplatonic spectrum.

Does it mean being queer is unatural ? A mental illness ? No [bold text : No]. First of all, autism isn't a mental illness but a neurodevelopmental disorder, learn the difference. And even if it was categorised as a mental illness, it doesn't mean queerness is also one. It only means this thing I have alters my own life perception, and therefore it should not be surprising I end up identifying with labels outside the norm.

Me thinking this part of my identity is intertwined with how my brain is wired in a different way than others, it is not [bold text : not] me saying this is how it works for everyone. Individual experiences aren't the textbook definition for someting bigger, and a lot of you need to understand that.

[cripclave]

CripClave's Neurodiversity Week - First Announcement

CripClave's Neurodiversity Week is coming!

This fan event promotes neurodiverse representation in #conclave2024 fanworks. The official prompt list will be revealed on Saturay, with a surprise! Until then, you can submit your prompt ideas with this form: https://forms.gle/C1zKDW19ESha96ZL8

[earhartsease]

we felt like we perhaps owe an explanation as to why lately we've been writing neuroAtypical instead of neurodivergent

and it's because we're increasingly fed up with language that says "there's normal people, and then there's the other lot over there"

divergent implies diverging from a norm, from The Straight Path (to diverge literally means "to bend or turn away from something")

whereas the truth is much more like: there's common (typical) or less common (atypical) - oh and we're deliberately capitalising that A so it's harder to misread it as neurotypical

and we inhabit a world that's shaped to cater for the typical people (which we suppose is understandable) but which also almost entirely fails to accommodate, or even to try to accommodate, the atypical people in general

it's not that we're hoping or expecting it to catch on? it's just that we personally can't stand that more common term any more

[ryjkowiec]

Neuroatypical ppl, how do you keep a job and not be in a constant state of burnout, not lose almost every aspect of your personality & self esteem and have energy to do things beside your job?