This blog is actually the introduction that appears in my newest book (Endow, 2019, pp. xiii-xiv) available as of last week.
MOST ANYTHING ABOUT AUTISM and learning typically start out with the deficits of autism responsible for the problem experienced by the autistic. Then, it is followed up with ideas on how to address the deficits so as to impact the problem. If I were to start this book that way I would next talk about the diagnostic criteria. Here is what the DSM-5 says:
During the past week I have run into two different people in my personal life who have expressed erroneous beliefs about autism. Both people knew that besides being autistic myself, I am a therapist in the field of autism, have written many books and numerous blogs on various autism topics, and consult and speak internationally. Without a doubt, these people knew that I know about autism. And even so, they presumed their comments to be accepted fact so much so that they felt perfectly comfortable putting them forth as facts – never considering the information may not even be true about autism. In fact, if either of these folks would have at all been wondering or trying to sort out autism fact from fiction, I would have been the first person they would have asked. They were not trying to sort out good information from bad, but instead based their point of view on the “known” public perception of autism, presuming it to be factual.
Last September I returned from a vacation that I had been dreaming of taking for several years. I had booked my vacation quite a long time ago. After booking it, my personal resources declined. Many autistics know this phenomenon as autistic burnout. I am beginning to understand that there is likely some interplay between autistic burnout and the aging process.
As a child, people sometimes thought I was stubborn and resistant when I did not want to allow them into my space or to do what they wanted me to do. They did not understand the negative effect they had on me and on my surroundings, and at the time, I did not have the words to explain it.
“Dissociation is the ability to cut off from what is happening around you or to you. In its simplest form it is daydreaming. It is a skill all children have and which children with autism tend to overdevelop in managing a world they find overwhelming for a whole range of reasons.” (Donna Williams at http://www.donnawilliams.net/333.0.htm)