It's Autism Awareness Month, so let's bust a pretty common myth about autism. "Everyone's a little autistic." No hate if you've ever said this. But if you have, I hope you'll stick around for this. 🙂 - ThreadSky

sensorystories.bsky.social • 55 days ago

It's Autism Awareness Month, so let's bust a pretty common myth about autism.

"Everyone's a little autistic."

No hate if you've ever said this. But if you have, I hope you'll stick around for this. 🙂

Comments

randalbudzilo.bsky.social•55 days ago

I can't stand when people say that to me.

I don't walk around telling people "everyone is a little color blind".

cuddlyworkhorse1.bsky.social•55 days ago

Everyone’s a lil different. Not everyone’s a little autistic. Autistics are extra different 🙃

lisanator77.bsky.social•55 days ago

I particularly enjoy the gentleness with which you firmly present factual information about autism...welcoming to those who don't already know, without dehumanizing the allistic audience.

sabrina7smitty.bsky.social•54 days ago

Beautifully put.

jetsamnflotsam.bsky.social•55 days ago

The same can be said with people saying that about using bipolar disorder. When that person is not bipolar. Just feel they are making a joke out of real illness that impacts our lives forever.

sentientyoyo.bsky.social•55 days ago

Or OCD and Schizophrenia too

niborris.bsky.social•55 days ago

It's interesting to me that Executive Function issues aren't part of the criteria at all, but sensory processing issues are. I guess with the autistic people in my life, those have both been major focus areas for support.

senchaskene.bsky.social•54 days ago

Also...the term "neurodivergent" implies that you're not normal; i.e., diverging from the "norm." "Neurodiverse" is the preferred term.

sensorystories.bsky.social•54 days ago

So, this had to be explained to me before I understood, but neurodiverse is a word that simply describes the fact that the world is comprised of different types of brains. That includes what is deemed "typical". Neurodivergent describes brains that diverge from the "typical" brain.

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

If you think about autism as linear, where on one end of the line you have "not autistic at all" and on the other end you have "very autistic," it makes sense that someone who seems to have SOME signs of autism would be "a little" autistic.

But that's not how autism works.

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

The reason autism is considered a spectrum is that every autistic person has a different variation of autistic traits that impact them...

BUT the diagnostic criteria for autism very specifically define this impact as impairing a person's ability to function in their day to day.

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

So, simply put... if you're not impaired by the traits, you’re not autistic.

But this doesn't explain what autism actually IS. So, let's talk about that for a minute.

[For context, I'm using the DSM 5-TR autism criteria for this description.]

pasher.bsky.social•54 days ago

I think its confusing because diagnostic categories and testing is continually evolving, and there’s also debate around whether these are social communication differences or deficits, and where the location of impairment is within the individual or within a society that is not set up for autists

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

In a nutshell, autism is a combination of social communication challenges and restricted repetitive behaviors, which show up in the following 7 ways...

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships

4. Repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech

5. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior

sensorystories.bsky.social•55 days ago

6. Restricted, fixated interests

7. Hyper or hyporeactivity to sensory inputs (aka sensory sensitivities)

Now, a person has to show clinical impairment in ALL of the first 3, and in AT LEAST 2 of the final 4 in order to be diagnosed with autism.

tornadobunnyaurora.bsky.social•47 days ago

Wondering if the insistence on sameness could be attributed to the anxiety Autistix people experience, especially when people with Allism don’t always meet their needs.. so maybe if the Autistic person was wearing a certain color on a day their needs were met, they start wearing that color.

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