PSA

PSA

Some people who use a walking stick can walk without it.

Some people who use a wheelchair can walk.

Some people who sign/use computerised speech aids can speak.

Some people who use canes can see.

Some people who use subtitles can hear.

Stop policing accessibility.

These things are aids that improve the quality of life for people with a huge variety of needs, abilities, and challenges. We use these things to make a hard task easier, to make fun times more fun, to lessen pain, to improve communication. We shouldn’t have to wait until we’re completely unable to walk/see/hear/speak (etc) to access these things. We shouldn’t feel ashamed for needing help. There’s no magical line where you become “disabled enough”.

Stop policing accessibility.

i love you

i love you autistics with caretakers

i love you autistics who need caretakers but don’t have them

i love you autistics whose motor control is too poor to feed yourself without assistance

i love you autistics with poor facial control and poor volume regulation and poor tone management

i love you autistics with terrible interoception

i love you autistics who stim in “gross”/“weird” ways

i love you autistics with loud and disruptive stims

i love you nonverbal/nonspeaking autistics

i love you unreliably speaking autistics

i love you autistics who have verbal shutdowns

i love you unpredictable autistics

i love you autistics who society pities and infantilizes

you are not a tragedy.

Important: If a person on Tumblr says that somebody else writes your posts for you, and wants you to prove that you write everything on your own:

Don't respond. Don't upload a video of you typing or using your AAC device. Block that person, or ask someone to block them for you.

They won't listen to you and you can't convince them. They're just mean. It's spam. Really, just ignore them.

Here's a long post I wrote about that today, in case you're curious:

Makes more sense to me now. Maybe I should admit to myself that I have higher support needs than I thought/than I used to, regardless of why, instead of wasting precious time/energy trying to find EXACTLY the reason. Knowing stuff is important but taking care of self should be more important to me.

Btw, "support needs" aren't there to describe how your autism impacts your ability to perform IADLs and BADLs - they're there to describe how much support you need with IADLs and BADLs in general.

If you can't perform IADLs, it doesn't matter why. What matters is that people know that you need help with IADLs.

I often see autistics say something like "I don't know if I'm low support needs or medium support needs because I have so many additional things, I don't know what's because of my autism and what's because of these other things" - it doesn't matter!

Are you having bad motor skills and balance issues because of your autism or because of another developmental thing? It doesn't matter, these things influence each other and make you you. You're struggling with IADLs and maybe BADLs, that's what's important, not why.

If you're focusing on autism, that's support levels as in the DSM-5, but the DSM-5 doesn't care if you can perform IADLs and BADLs to assign you an autism level.

This is the difference between autism/support *levels* and support *needs*.

Support needs are about the ability to perform IADLs and BADLs, not about why.

Ok? Ok. 👍🏼

Giving nonspeaking kids and kids with difficulty using oral speech access to AAC as soon as possible needs to be normalized.

Of course you want your child to communicate, that's fine, that's GOOD. But oral speech isn't the only way to do that, and refusing to give your child a way to communicate because it isnt the form of communication you favor isn't okay.

Its OKAY if your kid never learns (or relearns) to use oral speech. ITS OKAY.

"But I put them in speech therapy to learn to talk! I don't want them to use that tablet all their life. They need to learn to talk using their mouthparts." Why??

First of all, AAC is proven to actually help people develop language skills and oftentimes oral speech. So any concern about AAC hindering development of oral speech is uncalled for and irrational. But along with that, ORAL SPEECH ISNT THE ONLY GOOD FORM OF COMMUNICATION!! AAC is good. Sign is good. Etc.

Saying otherwise and/or preferring your child to use oral speech IS ableist, and yes, it IS harmful to everyone.

things that can & do & should coexist at same time:

not everyone have access to (autism) diagnosis because of racism ableism etc against marginalized identities such as race class sex gender etc.

having an autism diagnosis is not a blanket privilege because many are forcibly diagnosed as kid and abused specifically because of their diagnosis, disproportionately visibly disabled/autistic, high support needs, “severe”/labeled as severe, cannot mask, have intellectual disability, etc.

if have ability and choice in getting diagnosed or not. choose very carefully. because diagnosis allow you services but also open door to discrimination (take child away, not allowed immigration, harder to access HRT, seen as medically incompetent, etc) you have less chance of experiencing if you undiagnosed.

these above discrimination still disproportionately affect BIPOC, low income, queer trans, high support needs, have intellectual disability, visibly autistic ppl, etc.

but even being able to choose whether to diagnose self or not, is autonomy & advantage many people don’t have. some people don’t have choice, like cannot afford or access diagnosis, or forcibly diagnosed as kid. but also, people who not diagnosed as kid per se but as they grow up, increase disability thus need diagnoses for services (and can’t survive without them) and can no longer hide disability and autism.