-
Autism and the Stigmas of Living with an Invisible Disability
Autism, at least for the less severely impaired, has been called an “invisible disability.” This is because the challenges faced by autistics are not as readily evident as those of other disabilities. A visually impaired person, or one using a wheelchair, is immediately seen as someone facing...
-
Studying Us to Death: The Lethal Cost of Autism Research Without Autistic Investigators
I was formally diagnosed with autism and ADHD at the age of 44. I finally had an explanation for why so many things in my life seemed so much harder for me than for others. There was a reason I often felt like the people around me were having two conversations – one with words that I had full...
-
Becoming the Person I Once Needed
I often think to myself, “I do this so that no other autistic child has to go through what I went through.” As an autism researcher with a background in social psychology, I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of stigma over time. But it wasn’t any article, study, course, or the...
-
Medicaid Cuts Will Put People Like Me at Risk
My name is Jimmy Tucker. I have a learning disability, and I am on the autism spectrum. In school and in adult life, I never felt like I fit in. I’ve always felt different, and that made things harder for me. But Medicaid-funded programs have helped me find my way. These are the supports I rely...
-
Autism in Cuba
Ground Rules: Context “Context,” the word, is not at risk of vanishing just yet, but “context,” the concept, could soon go the way of “critical thinking,” or “racism,” wherein parties that seemingly know little about these terms have the power, through the act of thoughtless...
-
Acting Neurotypical: How Becoming an Actor Helped Me Thrive in Society
When I was younger, I thought I had life all figured out: I was the math kid, not the social one. That was my lane. I accepted early on that the world saw me differently—and treated me that way, too. But that perception started to shift when my sister got into acting. Her passion for the silver...
-
Through Distorted Lenses: The Unacknowledged Impact of Visual Perception Differences in Autism
“In daily life, seeing is intricately linked to understanding, with (visual objects)…functioning as preferred carriers of meaning and understanding. However, a closer look at visual practices demonstrates that the connection between sight, visual imagery, and understanding and interpreting them...
-
The Power of Accountability in Autism and Wellness
The right course of action in life is usually a mean between two extremes. For example, if I am a student who wants to do well in school, my path runs between the opposing extremes of not studying on the one hand and consistently pulling all-nighters with the books on the other. And if this...
-
Navigating Health as an Autistic Picky Eater
Like most, if not virtually all autistics, I lived with a variety of sensory sensitivities my entire life. As a child, I was extremely averse to certain visual stimuli (particularly camera flashes), specific kinds of sounds, and the motion of an elevator. Luckily, these subsided as I got older. Two...
-
Embracing Disability as Key to Autistic Well-Being
Accepting ourselves as disabled people is key to autistic well-being. Far from defeatist, identifying as disabled is empowering. When we understand ourselves as disabled, anxiety goes down, and self-esteem goes up. For a long time, I compared myself to non-autistic people, and they seemed to...
