This War on Autism Needs to STOP.

when I discovered I was autistic in my mid-20s and I started spending more time in the online autism Community felt like it stepped into a little bit of a conflict a disagreement shall we say it seems that in the eyes of many people the autism mom is like the final boss if you will the ultimate villain the caricature version of the autism mom loves all things puzzle piece she probably has it as a bumper sticker on her car she probably has it as a tattoo on her forearm her child being autistic has become her whole personality she probably films them having meltdowns and uploads them to Tik Tok or she makes Tik toks ranting about how hard it is to parent an autistic child and then links her Amazon wish list in the description or how some sort of merch store with t-shirts with inspirational quotes maybe some puzzle pieces on everything lots of primary colors she's very sensitive to criticism and she probably gets into pretty frequent battles in the comments section but then for this autism mom the ultimate villain is the young bluehead apab ticktocker autistic person who in the mind of the autism mom is wrongly appropriating the term autistic and seems fine actually everybody has anxiety who do they think they are with their quirky alternative dress stents and their novelty earrings they're making autism seem like just another quirky accessory and the autism mom takes offense this person who is seemingly so much less disabled then my child who perhaps has excellent verbal ability is arguing that autism is just a difference and is maybe making jokes sometimes about the autistic experience in the mind of the autism Mom they're skewing public perception away from higher support needs autistic people and to make matters worse this caricature of an autistic person comments frequently on videos uploaded by the autism mom telling them they're wrong criticizing their parenting and if the autism mom ever says one slightly bad thing about autism they'll be be there to accuse them of hating their children and maybe even being abusive so I've dipped my toe into this discussion this conflict several times before a couple of weeks ago I did a video responding to an interview that book Angel did with the mother of an autistic child and tried to dismantle some misinformation that was shared there but today I want to see if there's a way we can bridge the gap why can't we all just get along I've been asked quite a few times recently to touch on the Jubilee middleground discussion video they featured Abby a cast member from Love on the Spectrum and then also her mom Christine and Christine said a few things that really upset a lot of people in the autistic Community a lot of people in the comment section were not happy Tik Tok is like a Warr a Battleground for like the rudest meanest most judgmental people and sadly a percentage of them say they are on the Spectrum so I'm going to touch on a few of those things within this video as well we'll get on to that a bit later I'm going to talk about four points of contention between some autistic people and some parents of autistic people online please note that I was being very silly with the intro and just describing extremes those do not describe actual people and most people are not chronically online and perhaps being chronically online is part of the problem but who am I to say anything about that point of contention Number One support for Autism Speaks with a built-in perceived desire for a cure for autism the stereotypical autism mom is in support of the puzzle piece Laden charity Autism Speaks it's not uncommon that you'll hear autistic people online refer to Autism Speaks as an Autism hate group Autism Speaks is trash balls in 2009 which is way too recent for my liking they produced this advert I am autism I am autism which effectively positioned autism as a disease I work very quickly I work faster than pediatric AIDS as a demon who had stolen your child I know where you live and guess what I live there too and was coming for your neighbor's child next and was plotting the demise of of your marriage I will make sure that your marriage fails and even today the following quote can be found on their website on their page of dos and don'ts after an Autism diagnosis autism is like a thief in many ways it has been known to Rob children of their childhoods it can sometimes steal the joy and Hope from parents autism has drained a lot of bank accounts and has ruined marriages but it does not have to be that way don't let an Autism diagnosis do those things to you it's giving beware of autism stay alert it's not giving autism acceptance autism speaks original Mission was to find a cure for autism they removed that from their mission statement in 2016 and then there's the whole vaccine thing they say they're following CDC guidelines now Autism Speaks is not against vaccines we follow the CDC guidelines but what Eileen lamb who is the social media manager for Autism Speaks she's also autistic herself and she has two autistic children what she doesn't mention here though and what I'm sure a lot of autistic people don't appreciate is that Autism Speaks did fund Research into whether vaccines cause autism for a pretty long time a senior executive apparently resigned in 2009 the same year of the adverb I am autism because she felt like they were wasting time and resources by continuing to research it she said the fact is vaccines saved lives they don't cause autism and at the time Autism Speaks founder Bob Wright said that her resignation was disappointing and sad and also said that it was possible that autism was caused by vaccines but by 2014 they were strongly encouraging parents to vaccinate their children in 2017 they made the definitive stance that vaccines don't cause autism but I guess they just ran with it so long because families were frightened and people wanted that research and people were willing to fund it and still occasionally people try and push that narrative today that's why I'm excited to tell you about the sponsor of today's video ground news ground news is an app and website that helps you stay up toate on current events without becoming overwhelmed while also making you fully aware of any bias that could affect the article you're reading they take a data driven approach to reading the news for every story you get a visual ual breakdown on political leanings reliability and ownership for example a new study attempted to link the covid-19 vaccine to autism like behaviors in rats for whatever that's work ground news found 19 articles reporting on this and this includes the original study so we can compare what the scientists said to the media narrative on the bias distribution chart we have a visual breakdown of sources covering the story so 21% lean left and 64% lean right best of all we can compare headlines articles from the left emphasize that claims that the covid-19 vaccine causes autism are unfounded there's a warning here that the study can't be generalized to humans as I said there were more reports on this story from the right you can see nine articles here this one focuses on how quickly the covid vaccine was created sewing doubt in its safety and this headline from a low factuality Source just outright States covid vaccine causes autism in rats ground news can give you a full view of different perspectives boosting your trust in what you see in order to stay as nonpartisan and factual as possible ground news don't don't use any ads so you can click my link in the description below and subscribe to get 30% off their unlimited access Vantage plan which is about $6 us per month so as I say a cure for autism is out of the Autism Speaks mission statement but they do continue to fund genetic research they have a project called missing which is the world's largest whole genome database it is a massive proposition to do thousands of genomes and then put them up in a cloud environment to allow researchers to look at that from around the world World in study it this is hosted in Google cloud and in their words made available to people who want to work with it a lot of autistic people are very unhappy and wary of this autism speak State on their website that they don't support Eugenics but all of this data being available on a cloud like this does make it vulnerable to hacking now I personally have a bit of a special interest in autism there may be a few Clues around here I don't know if you've noticed just selfishly I'd love more information about autism about the different profiles about the different medical conditions it's connected to we know we have a lot of hypermobility and things like that and what if that information could lead to more reliable diagnosis and what if that information could lead to a medication or something that could help with sensory sensitivities in a Utopia where everything is good and right then maybe but I acknowledge that that's not the world we live in there was a study called Spectrum 10K researchers from the University of Cambridge aimed to investigate the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to Autism and Related physical mental health conditions to better understand well-being in autistic people and their families so again they wanted 10,000 DNA samples from autistic people and from their families and there was just so much backlash that it's had to be put on hold and you can see why considering the history of autism people would be nervous even Baron Cohen who was set to lead the study came out and said there's no way that we can ever say that a future political leader or scientist won't use the research for eugenics but he also said I think responsible scientists can speak out against that and say there are positive reasons for doing genetic research you know here's a library of DNA from a marginalized group it does feel quite vulnerable researchers must make sure autistic people are meaningfully involved at every stage of the research respond to their feedback and make sure that all involved know exactly how their input will be used and who knows maybe if we can increase the level of autism acceptance autistic people might feel more willing to contribute to things like Spectrum 10K I think autistic people kind of need to feel like they're welcome in this world first you know that that might be the first step I can see why a parent of a child who has comorbidities like epilepsy might find this quite frustrating but I think autistic people just need to feel like the risks are minimized enough for the potential benefits of any research to be worth it and of course as the national autistic Society emphasizes many autistic people do feel like we prefer research to go towards things that can help us right now supports but I mean back to the Autism Speaks issue my personal view is that even if Autism Speaks are you know fine now as they they claim to be that's probably a video for another day even if that were the case I'm not super impressed by their spending a lot of money seems to go on salaries if you compare it to a charity like the national autistic Society so number two the second point of contention my personal favorite and by that I mean my least favorite thing that parents of autistic children do probably that is monetizing your autistic child filming your child in distress and turning that into content I'm not sure your salary being dependent on you posting videos and photographs of your child is always going to lead you towards doing things that are in their best interest you could even kind of convince yourself that it is in their best interest and then what if you notice a certain type of content is getting more attention getting more views and what if that content is negative a parent could think to themselves well it's the truth it's Roar and real this is what everyday life is like in our household and if I post this content it will help other parents of autistic children to feel less alone maybe it'll even help some people to get their own children diagnosed Ed it's all in the name of autism awareness and autism awareness is a good cause right so I believe this was in 2022 but this controversial Tik Tok was posted to a Tik Tok account that now has 100,000 followers I won't show any faces or say what the name of the account is but the text on the Tik Tok read the side of autism people don't see all because the child didn't get her own way it's not always a happy house showing this has always said I'd keep it real at one point the child is picked up and thrown down onto a sofa by a man in a response video her mother states that he didn't throw her hard but Ian didn't harm her in that video he didn't throw a heart but it kind of frightens me that you're willing to show somebody being physical with an autistic child in that way on Tik Tok like what is going on behind closed doors if you're thinking that's acceptable to share I just can't imagine what it would be like to have your most vulnerable moments shared online like that it would be humiliating it would be traumatizing and as several people have pointed out that content is there on the internet forever now so your child is having a meltdown and your first thought is let's record this and let's put this on the internet for a bunch of strangers to see for this child's future classmates to see for people to see when this child is applying to University and you can see her mom does try and justify it with just keeping it real maybe I shouldn't have posted it but then if I hadn't have posted it I would have been keeping it real would I and I've said from the start that I will keep everything real and the people who disagreed with this content being shared haters which is often a thing that you do see from the quote unquote autism moms everybody who disagrees is a hater there's obviously been quite a lot of hate on it I don't understand why you all hate so much seeing a lot of the stuff starts to make me feel grateful in a way that I didn't have a diagnosis when I was a child I think for some parents it can maybe make them start to see everything their child does through this negative lens of disorder there's something wrong with them because they are videos of children doing quite normal things like showing a little bit of resistance towards going to bed and things like that I'm not undering that obviously autistic people do have autistic meltdowns but neurotypical children are not perfect either we don't film neurotypical or non-autistic children when they're taking too long getting ready for school and say things like this is tantrum awareness this is parenting awareness this is child rearing awareness there are unfortunately so many Tik toks like this and often the filming of the m mown or the aftermath of the Meltdown seems to kind of form part of a punishment for the autistic person like look I'm going to show everybody what you've done so parents who do upload their autistic kids a lot particularly if they're very high support these autistic kids they do have some comebacks that I think are maybe a little bit more worth entertaining than like the whole I'm just being raw I'm just being real thing they say what if only those autistic people who are able to consent are represented on social media or in any media won't we just be seeing one type of Artis autistic person not that every autistic person is the same we'd still be seeing a lot of different types of autistic people but we'll maybe be missing a lot of the spectrum and is that representation not vital I feel very strongly that the complaints by mildly affected autistic adults don't like that language at all that parents are violating their kids privacy by writing about them represent the most Insidious form of censorship said one mom severely autistic individuals don't have the capacity to consent therefore parents are forbidden to speak about them therefore the only voice the public is supposed to hear is that of autistic adults who claim to speak for the entire Spectrum in defense of autistic adults we do tend to say the whole if you've met one autistic person you've met one autistic person thing an awful lot but there certainly are some people who do act kind of like their experience of being autistic is everyone's experience or just at least sometimes phrase things as if they might think that way so I looked into what happens in a medical setting if somebody is unable to consent if there is truly absolutely no way that they can consent then somebody close to them can make decisions on their behalf but it must be in their best interests now obviously this is subjective and you will then get parents who will argue that Autism Awareness is in their child's best interests I think as humans we do have a tendency to kind of decide what we'd like to do and then try and moralize it afterwards and mold our ethics to fit the decision that we've kind of already made about how we'd like to do things I think if it were me trying to make that choice I'd try and consider whether you know if one day I was unable to consent would I want my highs my lows to be posted on social media and I think the answer is no I'm not hoping for a dementia with Meg account one day Meg has dementia now want I'd probably still be trying to make videos for this channel myself and everyone would be like me calm down it's fine love on the Spectrum Ed but the last time in 2030 let's just go for a walk let's have a cup of tea it's all going to be okay I think you need to be clear and kind of honest with yourself with your goals with sharing the content as well if a meltdown is going on Tik Tok for awareness although it may help some parents to feel less alone you're probably also unfortunately creating a space for ableism for vois viewers who do not respect your child I have seen the most disgusting comment sections particularly on Tik Tok it can be really bad what is achieved by this for an autistic person I also want to say that I don't think that parents of autistic children should be banned from speaking out about the difficulties of raising an autistic child just like I don't think any parent should be banned from speaking out about the difficulties about parenting just maybe sometimes that is better done in closed groups like Facebook groups you not going to get any nasty people in the comments that way well if it's Facebook you still might but it it should be less so and there might be local groups and maybe you could actually meet up with people who understand your situation that might be a better way to feel supported than like you know arguing over Tik Tok with the haters you know your child is going to grow up someday and see this one mother of an autistic child said is it really healthy you're letting them know know they were a burden to you even if you don't think they'll ever grow up to understand what a Tik Tok is maybe they'll never care what you post on Tik Tok in that case it would be really kind for parents of autistic people to consider the fact that other autistic people will see it they will understand and they will care number three the third disagreement between Autism moms and autistic people gatekeeping autism or some parents of autistic children claiming you are not autistic enough this came up a load in the video that I reacted to with bck Angel and autism mom I'm going to gatekeep autism where I don't think if you're awkward or if you think different or if you can't be in a social room that you have autism Amber really took offense when people who she perceived to be individuals who would have previously been diagnosed with asperis syndrome when she saw those people using the term autistic and then she later went on to reveal that she didn't actually think these people were autistic at all despite the fact that Asperger syndrome was always a type of autism and Christine aby's mom seems like she might agree with Amber in this Jubilee middleground video so the first prompt was I find the word disabled offensive what do you think of that word disabled does it bother you disabled um for me the kind of autism I have is a communication disorder he'll notice aby's mom will say the kind of autism we have or that's not our kind of autism she was so in her own world which is her kind of autism as if to separate aby's autism and Abby from other types of autistic people like for for example when I was a little girl I walked around in circles talking to myself I wanted to join the conversation but I didn't know how and my brain wouldn't do what I was telling it to do I've had 20 years of speech therapy 15 years of Occupational Therapy to be able to talk like everyone else to get where I am today so you think it's okay to use the word disability because it helps people understand how hard you've worked so I have the same reaction to Aiden the guy in the pink here I'm pretty sure I have videos on my channel where I B basically kind of say the same things some of my early videos when I was talking about traits of autism when I was small when I was in nurs three I was in a world of my own just walked around the edge of the playground and flapped my hands and I saw the other children integrating and playing and doing all the things that children do and I had absolutely no idea how to be involved with it at all I didn't really know if I wanted to be involved it was really confusing and me saying I relate to Abby here as Aiden does I'm not trying to equate my experience to hers and maybe this is where some autism parents get mixed up I just love the way she articulates it here it's brilliant when I first saw the Walt Disney's The Little Mermaid I really understood Ariel and she she inspired me Ariel was my inspiration because it's just like how where she wanted to be with the humans and I wanted to be with the neurotypical people just like that and when Ariel became human she couldn't talk that's how I felt and again I think it's fine for autistic people like me who didn't have any speech therapy I think it's fine for us to relate to parts of aby's story and to find connection that's exactly the kind of autism I have too Abby really yeah except I never verbalized it like you did here aby's mom uses the term neurod differenter to describe Ian because this autism word and Spectrum now has successful people and writers who are neuroi and people who have had 20 years of speech therapy it's confusing from what I've seen here Ian seems like a very sensitive guy and he goes on later to talk about his struggle with autistic masking which is essentially trying to cover up the fact that you're autistic every day in order to fit in The Mask I've had to put on has really been kind of like cemented onto my face and like my autistic self is like something I'm still trying to chip away at which is an experience many of us can relate to and he also talks about how he feels like there are just no services for autistic adults aside from things like speech therapy there are no Services really for adults and that's a problem at least like besides like the speech therapies and stuff like that the phrase neurod difference seems very dismissive neuroi there's this implication that because he's successful he's fine actually and I just don't think that's necessary you can tell aby's story without diminishing anybody else's and I doubt Christine aby's mom does know very much about his story because he doesn't share an awful lot here he's never met him before and she also doesn't ask him and you know what maybe Ian doesn't want to air his dirty laundry on an episode of Jubilee and that's fine an autistic person shouldn't have to prove how autistic they are in order to be taken seriously I can't imagine how annoyed aby's mom would be if somebody found their Tik Tok they looked at some clips of Abby swimming of Abby singing karaoke of Abby going on water slides of Abby doing speeches of Abby having a successful relationship a partner that she found on a reality TV show you know how would annoyed would she feel if somebody turned around and said I think your daughter's too successful to be autistic my kid will never be able to do or understand those things that's not the type of autism we have ab's just a bit neurod different you know and there is sitting within this group the father of an autistic child who sounds like he's very high support needs and is also non-speaking he doesn't understand that I'm going to do this he doesn't understand what autism is imagine if he turned around and was like well that's not our type of autism you know this competitiveness is just kind of toxic and unnecessary there is also this suggestion from many autism moms that the dsm5 diagnostic criteria now includes too many conventionally successful people the term Spectrum keeps getting big and bigger and bigger and aby's Mom alludes to this on aby's website too but the very first person diagnosed as autistic in 1943 Donald triplet he had a bachelor's degree in French and he worked as a banker I'd just love to know what type of autism aby's mom would think he had does he have the same type of autism as Abby was he worthy of an Autism diagnosis despite his bachelor's degree in French I guess it's trending to be artistic and I'm very worried about this it's trending mag Thomas well what I'd like to say is if you have sensory issues you're now called autistic I grew up with a brother who had sensory issues he is not autistic but now you're clumped in with that in 2013 the way autism was labeled did change quite drastically a bunch of different labels that had still been considered part of the autism spectrum prior to that such as Asperger syndrome were merged together to create autism spectrum disorder and part of the reason was that they couldn't find consistent biological markers between Asperger syndrome and the old diagnostic label autistic disorder the actual criteria not really changed that much it still basically sums up the same traits it's just that instead of these different labels we now just have levels of support needs and the dsm5 does state that these support needs May fluctuate throughout a person's life as well which I like sometimes they make it sound like the DSM 5 changeed the wording to say something like all introverts are actually autistic if you've ever experienced a sensory issue once in your life if you've ever worn a sock and it's got wet and you've not liked the experience then you're autistic I've sat at parties with asger kids which I know you're not supposed to say that that word but the intelligence in an Asperger person is such a gift I learned all about astronomy from this one kid in two hours and his mother was saying leave the nice lady alone and I was like no please let him stay with me that's because I'm coming from that place of looking at neurodiversity autism Asbergers in in a different way I don't understand the insistence on clinging to this asperous label particularly when you sprinkle in the fact that it was connected to an Austrian physician who was complicit with the Nazis so then what is the representation if literally not three levels but 50 levels of functioning 50 levels of functioning yeah it's confusing like on Tik Tok you'll see like someone with 8 million followers on Tik Tok who's a comedian who's the funniest person ever and who's I'm an amazing fan of is is looking for an Autism diagnosis at 35 with a college degree and two kids and you go oh I wonder what that is for them because did you have any speech therapy what is it and why do you feel you need that diagnosis and this seems to be the issue with a lot of parents of autistic children they take their own experience with their own child and they try and apply it to everyone not every autistic person will require speech therapy or will have speech therapy I don't understand why we need to dismiss people completely what other label are people supposed to use neuro different would that have helped me to get accommodations at school when I had to drop out at age 17 Again I wonder how aby's Mom would feel if someone came along and doubted aby's diagnosis based on a Tik Tok a tiny short Tik Tok that came on their for you page and guess what they did I found several threads of people discussing how they thought Abby is faking autism obviously this is ridiculous and I don't condone this Behavior I think this whole fake claiming thing is stupid and it needs to stop people saying that is so unfair to Abby because yes she is an autistic person who has worked really hard to come across as well as she does now and to speak as well as she does now and that's how a lot of us feel even if we didn't have speech therapy it took a lot of effort and energy to to come across as quote unquote normal as we do now this is maybe not how we were when we were children I definitely have seen some people on social media claim that autism is not a disability some people say it's a difference and I can see how a parent of a child with a lot of support needs could see that and kind of take issue with it but what I do think is just because somebody doesn't identify as disabled and doesn't want to use that label for themselves doesn't mean they're not disabled they may just prefer not to think about M themselves that way for self-esteem reasons unfortunately disability is really stigmatized in our society and maybe as that changes over time more people will feel comfortable with coming forward as people kind of are now on social media and it's causing a lot of push back but more people might feel comfortable to come forward and say yes I actually do need help I actually do need support I am struggling in this area and we can work towards a more inclusive Society at the end of the day it is up to an individual though how they want to label themselves and I'm sure there are many autistic people who would be considered higher support needs who also don't consider themselves disabled maybe they just dislike that word maybe they just don't like to see themselves that way doesn't mean they're not autistic though I really like this comment on Reddit so there was a post where someone had said autism is a disability to say otherwise it's harmful and then someone said frankly while it is ableism when people refuse to believe that it can be disabling that doesn't mean there aren't advantages to accepting that autism is a fundamental part of who you are and it's okay to be proud of what makes you unique and What Makes You you even if it comes with challenges the diagnostic criteria focuses on the negative it is good for your mental health to practice acceptance and appreciation of yourself and who you are as a person even if you find it hard at times the joys of delving into a special interest the soothing Karma stemming the ability to notice small details in life are all things that come from autism that I am grateful for and I think that is beautifully worded and yeah all of those are things that I am grateful for as well one thing that is really clear in this Jubilee video is that autistic people with different presentations can really connect some people on the Spectrum tend to rock back and forth and flop their hands and that's a stem why you got to call me that out I was doing that just now no literally I've been holding my hands like this at the end of the day I think a lot of this upset and anger stems from parents of autistic children feeling like there is a lack of support and then maybe kind of misdirecting that towards other autistic people I have cried more hours on the phone trying to get accommodations and programs going for her after 18 that I did when she was a younger kid which leads me on to point number four autism moms makes their child's diagnosis their whole personality and this is where I think I empathize most with autism moms or just parents of autistic children that's not your identity that's your child you're weird Okay this person has really great eye makeup and I love their editing but I do disagree with this point if you're a single mom or parent if you can't find a suitable school placement for your child if you are only offered 48 Hours of breast fite care a year as one parent stated how are you not supposed to make your child's diagnosis your whole personality if you have a high support these autistic child you live and breathe caring for them I'm sure many of these moms would love to have a hobby would love to be able to take days off sometimes but they can't it has become their whole life it has to be some autistic children need somebody with them 24/7 in order to stay safe my sexism radar starts to go off a little bit when I hear things like this too because it's never autism dads it's always autism moms where are the autism dads there is actually a great lovely autism dad in this Jubilee video he's he's great I talk to him about everything people always tell me when they find out he's non-verbal they're like you should talk to him I'm like I talk to him more than I talk to anybody else on earth like it's constant there's things he doesn't understand like fundamental things that he doesn't understand he doesn't understand that I'm going to do this he doesn't understand what autism is he doesn't understand things like that but I tell him when I relate to my son what I try to do is I try to put myself in his shoes so I write a blog about him I try to do autism appreciation I call it where I talk about the positives of autism and how he's a great kid not despite autism but in many ways because of autism he seems really really loving and caring but in general mostly we're hearing about autis and moms because most of the time it will be women who will be giving up their careers to care for their autistic children I never like the idea that any parent should not be allowed to share negatives about parenting I think that gives like toxic positivity Vibes it isn't always perfect doesn't mean you hate your child just means that everybody's human sometimes you know we need to talk things through we need to maybe vent a little bit as I say probably better to not do this on tick talk closed groups are probably a better space for this in theory you could become a carer for a loved one at any time somebody in your life could become disabled and you could need to care for them I love my family and I think I would step up but it doesn't mean that that would be easy for me all the time you know if I wasn't able to do my work I'd be so sad about that and I'm sure autistic people can really relate to that particularly if if you work around your special interest that would be really difficult the knock of not having that second income even though in the UK you can access some supports it's not going to make up for the income that you've lost if you just look through BBC News you just see constant stories of how autistic people and their families are being failed again and again and again there is so much that needs to be done no wonder so many parents of autistic children are frustrated they need more help and I think that will definitely help us on our pathway towards autism acceptance obviously that are parents out there that are abusive that never should have had any child that's not the people who I'm talking about here as an artistic person I find it somewhat offensive when people say that I'm making autism my whole personality you know I don't think we should be saying that about anybody else and you know what there probably are some parents of autistic children who are undiagnosed autistic themselves and maybe it's become a bit of a special interest for them I definitely had a special interest in parenting with my son for a while there for sure and I don't think that somebody being autistic necessarily means that they would know exactly how to perfectly parent an autistic child you know when you are a parent advice from people particularly when people don't have children themselves it can be really annoying I do think there is value in parents of autistic children listening to autistic adults for sure it is thanks to autistic Scholars many of whom may be considered lower support needs autistic people but it's thanks to them that we understand things like stemming is soothing thanks to autistic Scholars we're learning more about autistic inertia autistic burnout and the theory of monot tropism which I really really love was created by autistic people monot tropism potentially offers an explanation for why some autistic people are non-speaking focusing on our shared experiences of the world I believe will bring us closer more quickly to our shared goal of healthier happier lives for all autistic people and their families I don't know maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I do think with both sides maybe we just need a little bit more respect a little bit more assuming good intent if you would like to see more videos like this one you can support me over on patreon my lowest tier is $4 a month and if you join that tier you can join the Discord Community where you can chat to other neurode Divergent people other people who might suspect that they are neurod Divergent as well you don't have to have a diagnosis there's no gatekeeping at the door it's fine it's just a really really lovely space and then I also make two exclusive videos over there every month so I do one advice video where people send in their problems and then I also do a reaction video too I think I'm going to be reviewing oryan Kelly's book as the next one but I also have one where I reacted to this documentary about a school just for autistic girls made me cry numerous times it was lovely though and if you haven't seen the video where I reacted to Buck Angel's interview with the autism mom Amber I'll leave that linked down below and if you would like to try out ground news you can click my link in the description to get 30% off their Vantage plan which is around $6 thank you so much bye he he