Posts Tagged ‘relationships’

Neurodiverse Couples: Making Meaningful Moments of Every Day – Having a Good Afternoon

Every day there are countless opportunities for partners to create small connecting moments to enhance emotional connection in their relationship. Taking advantage of these little moments can make for big changes in your relationship dynamics. “Having a Good Afternoon” is the second of the...

Webinar: Preparing for Puberty in Children with Autism

In this recorded webinar, Cora Taylor, PhD, discusses puberty in individuals with special developmental needs, including: Helping children understand and prepare for body changes associated with puberty Encouraging good hygiene Understanding public/private behaviors Handling issues...

Autism and the Troubling Risk of Suicide

This article has information about suicide and suicide prevention. For help 24/7, please call or text the U.S. Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Few people used to think about the risk of suicide among people on the autism spectrum. Researchers rarely studied it. Primary care doctors did not...

Intimate Relationship Failures From an Autistic Perspective

The standard narrative positions autism as the cause of relationship trouble when a non-autistic person dates or falls in love with an autistic person. The autistic partner is assumed to be the disruptive or difficult one. Self-help books offer non-autistic partners tips on how to cope with their...

Autism and Adolescence: For Many, the Most Challenging Time of Life

It is a well-known conventional wisdom that adolescence, or the teenage years, are a difficult time of life for everybody and that this has probably been the case since time immemorial. It is equally well known in the autism community that middle school (or, as it was known in my day, junior high...

A Brief Guide to Discussing Intimacy and Sex in Neurodiverse Couples Therapy

Intimacy and sex are healthy, natural aspects of human relationships. Yet, this topic is often unaddressed by both therapists and couples seeking support. While differences and challenges related to intimate connections are not unique to neurodiverse couples, there are core areas of neurodiversity...

Neurodiverse Couples: Making Meaningful Moments of Every Day – Having a Good Morning

Many neurodiverse couples struggle with emotional connection and intimate communication. They yearn for a romantic touch, a knowing glance, a kind gesture to make them feel close. These little things make a big difference in an intimate relationship. And when these small connecting moments do not...

Sexual Consent and Communication

Historically, professionals have assumed autistic people are incapable of engaging in partnered sexual activities or are uninterested in intimate relationships. Most services for autistics continue to focus on affected family members with children. Until recently, research on autistic sexual...

What My Autism Has Taught Me About Dating and Relationships

I was diagnosed as autistic in my late forties, after a counsellor first suggested I might be autistic. Discovering I am autistic has helped me make sense of almost every aspect of my life, including my long-running unsatisfactory history of dating and relationships, up until the point I met my...

Sex Education for Autistic People: Why It’s Not Too Much to AASK

One of the most vivid memories I have of growing up is when I had my first period. I was 12 years old, and I can still see my mother standing in the bathroom doorway, her face filled with amazement and delight. “Amy, you’re a woman now!” Confusion etched itself in lines across my...