-
Why Didn’t My Pre-Diagnosis Clinicians Bring Up the Possibility of Autism?
So much was lost as a result of not knowing for so long. Lost happiness, because of having to contend with unanswered questions as to why I faced such daunting challenges which none of my peers seemed to be facing. Lost time, during which I lived without a complete picture of who I truly am, during...
-
Autism Around the World: An Interview with a First Lady with a Degree in Special Education and “Autism Belize”
She doesn’t flinch… “We need money! We need a lot of money. We need a lot of training, and it costs a lot of money…We’re not lost. We’re not this little country that has our heads in the sand. Every time somebody suggests to me ‘Let’s have a Special Education summit!’ It upsets...
-
I Was Finally Diagnosed with High-Functioning Autism, Now What?
I suspected I was on the Autism Spectrum for over 20 years before I finally received a diagnosis. Like many people with high-functioning autism, my autism went unnoticed because I was intelligent enough to succeed in school and my autistic traits were not seen as neurodivergent, but as learning...
-
Late-Diagnosed Autism and Camouflaging in People Assigned Female at Birth
It is becoming increasingly understood that there are marked differences in autism between genders. This has led to people assigned female at birth (AFAB) to being diagnosed in adolescence or adulthood at a higher rate compared to people assigned male at birth (AMAB) (Wood-Downie et al., 2020). I...
-
Honoring My Limitations as an Autistic Entrepreneur
I am an autistic entrepreneur. That is a sentence I couldn’t have uttered that long ago. As far as the entrepreneurship part goes, I’ve run a business that I founded in 2013 called Autism Personal Coach. With the help of so many others, my company has turned into a business that is stable and...
-
Supporting Teens and Adults in Becoming the Best Self-Advocate They Can
The creation of self-advocacy is a story that is one of pioneering and revolution dating back as far as 1968 (Glumbić et al., 2022). Today, many self-advocacy organizations target elevating neurodiverse voices and providing space for neurodiverse individuals to advocate for themselves. The current...
-
This is What Autistiphobia Looks Like: Why Autistic Advocacy Matters
The Researcher A lot of people do not like Autistic people. Which is a common topic in Autistic spaces. But many allistics who want to advocate with us, as allies, stop talking to me when I mention attitudinal barriers to accessibility. Or else they find creative ways to avoid the...
-
Autism Advocacy: Inclusion, Empowerment, and Human Rights
“Autism isn’t this strange alien thing, it’s just a different way of thinking and experiencing the world. Some of us will find ourselves more or less compatible with modern living than others, we will all have different needs…but autism is not terrifying or awful, nor is it marvellous and...
-
Advocating for the Advocate
Experiencing a life-changing event is one of the reasons people start advocating. For autistic people, advocating can mean stepping so far out of their comfort zone socially, it feels like they’ve lost sight of it. As for myself, I went from feeling invisible most of my childhood, to talking in...
-
The Unique Responsibility of Neuroexpansive Minds for Cultural Inclusion
As an advocate for those with neuroexpansive minds in bodies that have become commodified bodies, I have come to understand, over the years, that a piecemeal approach to the valuing of difference and extensions of freedoms for all designated expendable in modern culture depends on every such...
