Autism, Identity and Me: A Practical Workbook to Empower Autistic Children and Young People Aged 10+

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This is the entirety of the human brain. So now do you see why we say we’re Autistic from our heads to our toes? Our whole neurology, all our cognitive processes, our senses, the way messages are deciphered and sent from every part of our body to the cerebellum, the control centre, are all shaped and formed by Autism. Humans are funny creatures. We’ve evolved so far yet are still driven by the basic instincts that drove us as apes. When you have this reasoning that Autism is a ‘part’, the thinking starts that because it’s a ‘part’ it can be gotten around. Autism, Identity and Me: A Professional and Parent Guide to Support a Positive Understanding of Autistic Identity 1st Edition

I am autistic card - National Autistic Society I am autistic card - National Autistic Society

Put through a dazzling array of unsuitable environments and subjected to an even more dazzling selection of strategies and treatments to keep them there.

How can someone who claims to want to understand the importance of the Autistic self come from a position of denying the Autistic self? It genuinely comes across from this that he doesn’t understand identity at all, nor it’s role in self-belief, confidence and mental well-being. And lastly, here in self-determination, we have competence. So everyone has strengths. The more space we offer Autistics to see and embrace and be empowered through our competence, through our inherent strengths, through our developed strengths, the more we can be freed from the overwhelming weight of deficit mindsets. How can I accept myself when I am inherently a deficit? That’s just not true. Everyone is different. Everyone has different strengths and everyone has competencies. Seeing those, embracing those, and feeling empowered by my strengths has been key for me. Discovering and fostering my own strengths in writing, research, storytelling, and design has helped me to foster a healthier relationship to myself. Upon that foundation of a healthier relationship, I have been growing in my self-acceptance. It is discouraging, though, that I’ve had to do so much of this work on my own, that I’ve had to seek out so much on my own my strengths. Of course we can do that on our own. We truly do need communities rallying around Autistics, around so many groups of people, so many individuals seeing, choosing to see the strengths. A negative narrative primed by the language it uses to deliver its message. Person First Language vs Identity First Language Sometimes it can be easy to look at what we don’t like. Maybe because we spend a lot of time looking at what we don’t like in ourselves. But fostering a strengths mindset of ourselves, fostering a strengths mindset in how we see others, builds up self-acceptance, builds up communal acceptance, builds up strength of identity. How can anyone tell us that we should not fight for our identity, when we are under a constant barrage of ignorance, indifference, abuse and neglect?

Helping young people to understand their autistic identity

We fall into uniformity. We act the same, we dress the same, we follow the same trends, we do things the same, we expect others to do the same, we categorise and narrow our thinking because it feels safe to be like other people, it feels safe to be protected by the herd. Among the mistreatment uncovered at that time, it was identified that some members of staff had made the people they supported pay for staff meals while on trips out. This was wrong and should not have been allowed to happen. We reimbursed the money in full in June 2016, making sure that none of the people in our care lost out in any way financially. The problem is that if we believe that Autism is only a part of us, it instantly put us at odds with ourselves.

Overall, we want it to be recognised that we are Autistic; that as well as being a diagnosis, Autism is an identity. When this is just a minuscule handful of examples of the abuse, oppression and subjugation handed out to Autistic adults and children every single day. This informative and engaging guidebook provides key adults – parents, school staff and therapists – with the tools needed to support children and young people as they develop a positive understanding of their autistic identity. The only negatives attached to it are those put there by broken and fix. Sustained by those that do not understand Autism nor the myriad of co-occurring conditions that hitch along with being Autistic. This follows the concept that the more people repeat the same thing over and over, the more likely it will slowly sink into the public consciousness, meaning that people become more acceptable to it.