From an autistic perspective cognitive dissonance manifests not in terms of contradictory beliefs, but in terms of complete alienation from the mainstream culture in industrialised societies. Most of the so-called foundations of our civilisation amount to a delusional level of wishful thinking. Our society is locked into paradigmatic inertia by fear and busyness.
Nick Barry is a nonspeaker who has his world opened up by gaining access to communication, but his emotional needs were not met until he was enrolled in counseling.
Amanda Madru talks about the intersection of religion and autism and how being autistic made her susceptible to religious trauma.
Sahit Bhagavatula is a 14-year-old nonspeaking autistic who won a writing contest with this essay and his reflections on the covid-19 pandemic.
What does it mean to be an autistic adult? A spouse? A home? A career? Or is it a constant battle to be accepted and working beyond the point of exhaustion into repeated burnouts?
Neurodivergent occupational therapist, Ara Munir, explains Neuroception, a sensory response to actual or perceived threats in the environment.
Trevor Byrd is a nonspeaking autistic teen struggling with obsessive compulsions. He conjectures that OCD is his brain’s way of trying to gain some control over his circumstances.
Asiatu Lawoyin, at age 42, experienced their first PTSD flashback from childhood sexual abuse. Asiatu unpacks the space between the trauma and the flashback through the lens of being Black and autistic.
Autistic people are anthropologists by birth in a very literal sense. Trauma and autistic lived experience in Western industrialised societies are very hard to separate.
Knowing the Strategies of ABA helps to shed light on what the practice does to children in their most formative developmental years.
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