You might hear people call autism a “spectrum”. That means that every autistic person is different. We all like and dislike different things, and we all need help with different things.

Some autistic people may need a lot of help with one thing, while other autistic people may not need help with the same thing. One person may look “less autistic” than another person, but there is no such thing as being “more” or “less” autistic. We are all just autistic.

For example:

Renee is autistic. She is non-speakingPeople who don’t talk with their mouths., and uses her iPad to communicate. Renee lives alone. She can cook and clean her house by herself, but she needs some help going out to get groceries.

Percy is autistic, and can talk. Percy lives with a support person. He can’t cook or clean his house by himself, but Percy can go out to get groceries by himself.

Percy isn’t “more autistic” than Renee, and Renee isn’t “more autistic” than Percy. Both of them are just autistic.

Autistic people think differently than non-autistic people.

Think about when you brush your teeth. Your brain thinks about a lot when you brush your teeth.

You think about how to hold the toothbrush, how to put it in your mouth, and how long you should brush your teeth. Autism can change how you think about all of those things.

Many autistic people have very strong interests, which we call special interestsVery strong interests that autistic people have.. For example, some autistic people have a special interest in trains. They think about trains a lot, and know a lot more about trains than other people. They want to spend most of their time thinking about trains.

There are all kinds of special interests. It might be something big, like science, or it might be something smaller, like a favorite band.

Sometimes, special interests only last a little while. You might only have a special interest for a week. Other times, you could have one for a few months or years. Some special interests stay with us our whole lives.

There might be times when you have no special interests, and there might be times when you have a lot of special interests. All of this is normal.

Special interests are good, because they make us happy! We can use our special interests to help people, and they can be useful in our jobs. Special interests are really important to most autistic people.

Executive functioningA group of skills that help people stay on track. Following a plan is an example of executive functioning. is a group of skills that help people stay on track.

Staying on track means things like:

• Following a plan
• Starting something new
• Stopping what you are doing
• Remembering what to do next
• Moving on to the next thing

For example:
Emily works as a waiter at a restaurant, and she is in charge of a few things. First, she has to help set up the restaurant. Then, people come to the restaurant, and she has to help customers order food. When people are done eating, she has to clean up.

Emily uses a lot of executive functioning. She has to start a lot of things, stop them when she’s done, and plan and remember what to do next.

Autistic people can have a hard time with executive functioning. It may be hard to make a plan for what to do, start something new, or stop what you’re doing. It may be hard to remember what you want to do.

Executive functioning problems can feel like being lazy, but having problems with executive functioning is not being lazy. You are not lazy. People with executive functioning problems want to do something, but we might not be able to without help.

Executive functioning problems can feel like riding a stubborn horse. No matter what you want, the horse ignores you! If you want the horse to run forward, it stays still. If you want the horse to stop, it keeps running.If you want the horse to change directions, it keeps going forward. In this example, the horse is your brain and body. You might want to do something, but you just can’t do it.

Executive functioning is hard for us. We might need extra support, and that’s okay! It’s okay to need help.

MeltdownsWhen an autistic person gets too stressed and can’t control their feelings. They might scream, cry, or run away. are when an autistic person can’t control our feelings, and they happen when someone gets too stressed. People having meltdowns might scream or cry, run away, or lose control of our body.

ShutdownsWhen someone stops being able to do anything. They might not be able to talk or move. can also happen when someone gets too stressed. A shutdown is when someone stops being able to do anything. We might not be able to talk or move.

Meltdowns and shutdowns feel scary to autistic people, and they can look scary to other people. But they don’t happen on purpose, and they are not the same thing as tantrums. Autistic people can’t control when we have a meltdown or shutdown.

There are lots of ways autistic people think differently. Here are a few:

Autistic people can notice small things that other people don’t notice. We can notice small mistakes that other people don’t see, like typos. We can pay a lot of attention to things other people don’t think are important. We can have very good memories for facts, like facts about our special interestsVery strong interests that autistic people have..

Many autistic people like routine. We might like things to be the same every day, or to eat the same foods every day. It helps us to know what will happen each day.

Change can be scary for us, since things being the same helps us stay calm. Knowing what’s coming helps us make sense of our lives.

Autistic people sometimes think in black and white. For example, things are either good or bad, we either like or dislike people, or we either can or can’t do something. We can sometimes think in-between, but it can be hard. Black and white thinking can be a good thing. For example, we know when something is right or wrong, and we can help people do the right thing.

Autistic people learn things differently. We might learn things in a different order, like learning “hard” things before “easy” things. We might be great at one thing and bad at another thing. We might not get something, and then suddenly get it weeks later. We might need to learn some things very slowly, and other things very fast, or we might need to learn something more than once. Because we learn things differently, we can solve problems that other people can’t!

ProcessingHow your brain thinks about and reacts to things. is how your brain thinks about and reacts to things. Sensory processingHow you think about and understand your senses. is a type of processing, which is how you think about and understand your senses.

For example, if you look at a sock, you might notice certain things about it, like what color and size it is. If you touch it, you’ll feel the fabric, and if you smell it, you’ll notice other things. It might smell like sweat or laundry sheets. That’s all sensory processing! Autism changes sensory processing in a lot of ways.

We have five major senses:

• Vision: Vision uses our eyes, and it’s how we look at things. We can see color, lightness and darkness, shape, and texture. We can see how close or far something is, or what type of thing it is.
• Touch: Touch uses our hands or skin, and it’s how we feel things. We can feel the texture of something, and tell how big or small it is. We can feel what shape it is, and how heavy or light something is. We can tell if food is soft or hard.
• Hearing: Hearing uses our ears, and it’s how we listen to things. We can hear sounds and tell how loud or quiet they are, and if a sound is close or far away. We can tell what kind of thing might be making a noise, and tell noises apart from each other.
• Smell: Smell uses our nose, and it’s how we figure out what something smells like. We can tell if something is stinky or smells good. We can tell different foods apart from each other.
• Taste: Taste uses our tongue, and it’s how we tell the flavor of something. We can taste food and decide if we like it or not. We can taste if something is sour, sweet, spicy, or salty, and if food is hot or cold.

There are other senses too, such as:

• Pressure: Pressure is how we tell when things are touching us. It also helps you know how heavy things are.
• Hunger and thirst: Hunger is how we tell if we have had enough food to eat. Thirst lets us know if we have had enough to drink.
• Pain: Pain is how we tell if we are hurt or sick. More pain usually means you are more hurt or sick.
• Temperature: Temperature is how hot or cold something is.
• Balance: Balance is how we stay standing up and walk straight.

We use sensory processing to understand what we see, touch, hear, smell and taste.

Each person processes their senses a little differently, but autistic people process our senses a LOT differently. For example, loud noises might bother us, or we might like dim lights more than bright lights. We might like the texture of one food and hate the texture of a different food.

You might sense something a lot or only a little. If one of your senses is too strong, you might not be able to pay attention to anything else. If one of your senses is too weak, might not notice the sense at all.

Many autistic people have senses that are too strong or weak. Tags on clothing might really bother us, or we might get too hot even if the temperature isn’t very high. We might not feel pain if we get hurt, or we might not notice a really bad smell.

Sometimes, our senses might feel like too much, which is called sensory overload. Sensory overload can make us angry or upset, or even cause a meltdown or a shutdown.

Autistic people can notice things that other people miss. We might love the fabric of a soft shirt, or love strong-tasting foods.

Our senses might change day to day. The tag on our shirt might bother us on one day, but tomorrow, it might be okay. It’s okay to feel things differently. There is no right or wrong way to process things.

StimmingMoving in the same way over and over again. Everyone stims, but autistic people stim more than other people. is moving in the same way over and over again. People stim for all sorts of reasons. We stim to help balance out our senses, show how we feel, or focus on things. Stimming can help us feel better, and it’s also a great way to have fun.

There are a lot of ways to stim, and here are a few examples:

• Rocking back and forth
• Flapping your hands
• Rubbing soft things on your face or body
• Humming, grunting, mumbling, moaning, or singing
• Spinning things or holding objects in front of your eyes

Almost anything can be a stim! People stim in different ways. One person might like rocking back and forth, while another person might like spinning around instead.

Non-autistic people stim too! For example, clicking a pen or tapping your foot is stimming. Everyone stims, but autistic people stim more than other people. Sometimes, we choose to stim because it helps us, and other times, we can’t control how or when we stim.

Sometimes non-autistic people say that stims are too distracting. They say that if you stim, you shouldn’t get to be around other people. These people are wrong! We should get to do the same things as other people. It doesn’t matter what our body is doing.

Autistic people with all kinds of jobs stim. Autistic people stim at home, at school, on the street, and in movie theaters. Autistic people have stimmed in the White House! No one should ever force you to stop stimming.

Autistic people have different motor skillsHow people control the way their body moves. than non-autistic people. Motor skills are how people control the way their body moves. Your body moves in big and small ways. Some big ways are running or swimming, and some small ways are writing or tying your shoes. Motor skills are also a part of talking, since moving your mouth to make sounds is a motor skill.

Not every autistic person has big differences in motor skills. Many autistic people have small motor differences, and we might not realize we have them! Motor differences can make someone have messy handwriting, be clumsy, or walk differently than other people.

Autistic people can have different kinds of motor problems, like:

• Planning how you are going to move
• Having trouble starting or stopping when you move
• Bumping into things, tripping, or dropping things

Here’s an example:

Alexis is autistic. She is sitting on the couch, and wants to get up and eat cereal. There are many things that might be hard for her. First, she has to stand up, then she has to walk to the kitchen. After that, she has to get the cereal, a bowl, and a spoon, and pour the cereal into the bowl.

Alexis has to think about all the steps before she can do them. She has trouble remembering what the steps are, and may not know what order they go in. She may have a hard time getting up from the couch. Once she starts moving, she may have a hard time stopping at the kitchen. She may drop the cereal or the bowl when she tries to get them.

There are lots of people like Alexis. Maybe you also have trouble with these things.

Many autistic people have motor differences that change how we talk. We use our muscles to talk, but our muscles don’t always work the way we want them to. This can make talking hard.
We have to figure out what we want to say, and how to make sounds with our mouth. We might not always know how, and even if we do, we might not be able to.

Some of us might hear differently, which can make it hard to figure out the right sounds to use. Figuring out the words we want can be hard, too. We might need to plan out what we want to say, and it can take us a while. People aren’t always patient with us, and we might not be able to find the words we want at all!

Starting or stopping talking can be hard, since our muscles might not work when we need them to. We can’t always talk when we want to, and we can’t always stop talking when we want to.

All of this can change how autistic people talk. For example, many autistic people can’t control our voices. We may talk too loud or too soft, or mumble or sound like we’re singing when we talk.

Some people can’t talk some or all of the time. Sometimes, this is because motor skillsHow people control the way their body moves. make it hard, but there might be other reasons. Lots of people don’t think in words, or we might have anxiety that makes talking hard. There are all sorts of reasons.

People who don’t talk are non-speakingPeople who don’t talk with their mouths.. Here are a few examples of what a non-speaking person might look like:

• A person who has not talked at all in their whole life
• A person who talked as a kid but can’t anymore
• A person who can talk sometimes, but writes words instead of talking

These are only some examples of what being non-speaking might look like! Some people are non-speaking as kids, but learn to talk later in life. Some people talk sometimes and not other times.

We don’t know exactly how many autistic people are non-speaking. Right now, we think that about 1 out of 3 autistic people are non-speaking.