jyn_urso on Nostr: I'm autistic, and I've experienced a lot of unnecessary hardship in my life because I ...

I'm autistic, and I've experienced a lot of unnecessary hardship in my life because I didn't know I was on the spectrum, but even after knowing, I wasn't taught what to do to better understand how my brain works so that I could navigate the world. Through autistic-centered therapy, I've learned a lot over the past several years, and I have many thoughts...

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of early intervention in autism. Temple Grandin and others emphasize how important this is. But what does that even mean? I think it does not mean teaching autistics to be like neuroypticals. The problem for me and others on the spectrum is that we've been taught to understand the world as if we had a built-in intuitive system. A heuristics way of managing sensory input, one might say. But the problem is that autistic people don't have such well-developed systems, but we do have strong analytical systems.

My theory is that every disabling aspect of autism is because of information overload and trauma. We get more information in every domain compared to neurotypicals. So we can't make intuitive guesses with limited data, we actually have too much data, so we need to take a more cognitive and analytical approach. Yet, through cognitive approaches, we can actually make better decisions/observations/connections than neurotypicals.

So I think any kind of intervention should reflect this. Whether it is in childhood or adulthood. It should be focused on interpreting, navigating, and managing sensory inputs. For those on the spectrum, this means it will be cognitive processing the vast majority of the time. Teaching autistic people to sense their bodies and learn how to cognitively interpret them will go a long way.

Interventions for helping those who are non-speaking who have trouble controlling their body--to me--should focus on increasing the signal-to-noise ratio in motor systems. But also teaching them how to communicate through letter boards and typing as early as possible is essential to avoid trauma and worsening sensory overload. There's cutting edge research showing a direct connection between emotion and sensory overload in the brain.

Finally, we need acceptance. Autistic people experience so much abuse through their lives, one study reported 9 in 10 autistic women experienced some form of sexual abuse. They concluded the targeted abuse of those on the spectrum had no relation to perceived diagnostic "deficits" but rather, autistic people are singled-out because we are different. Nothing more, nothing less. Teach your kids to accept those who are different. Autistic people have higher rates of suicide. Therapy for those on the spectrum is mostly about undoing all the harm neurotypicals did to us. Most autistic people are traumatized, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Autism is a neurotype and a spectrum. It can be both abling and disabling, depending on how severe the information overload is. But I think if we reframe how we look at it, and we address the foundational challenges, we can make it so that no aspect of autism is disabling.

Don't try to cure us. A different way of interpreting the world can only benefit society, not harm it.