Chapter 4

10. Don’t assume things about non-speaking people.

Lots of people have wrong ideas about people who are non-speaking. People think that if someone is non-speaking, they have an intellectual disability, don’t have anything to say, or don’t care about other people.

All of these ideas are wrong. Non-speaking people don’t talk, and that’s the only thing different about them. Just because someone can’t talk doesn’t mean they have nothing to say. It doesn’t mean they don’t care about people, or that they have an intellectual disability.

You should help non-speaking people communicate in ways that work for them. If someone is non-speaking, try to understand them and get to know them. Don’t assume things because you don’t understand.

11. Autistic people know that everyone has thoughts.

Some scientists say that autistic people don’t understand other people. They say we don’t know that other people have thoughts, or that different people have different thoughts.

That is very silly. Autistic people know that other people have thoughts, and we have said this for a long time. In this book, we talk about what other people think a lot, and that shows that we know that other people have thoughts. Maybe reading this book would help scientists understand how we think.

12. Autistic people are in the same world as everyone else.

Some people say that autistic people are “in our own world.” They think we don’t notice things going on around us, or that we don’t care about other people or other things.

This is wrong. Autistic people are in the same world as everyone else. We are right here, but we just see the world differently. Autism changes how we act with other people, but we are still part of the world.

Sometimes it might look like we are not paying attention or noticing things, but that could be for a lot of reasons. It doesn’t mean we are “in our own world”.

13. Not all autistic people are extra good at things.

Some autistic people are better than almost everyone else at certain things. For example, they might know the day of the week of any day in history. Maybe they can draw a city perfectly from memory, or they might be able to do very hard math in their heads.

Most autistic people are not this way. We are good at some things and bad at some things, but it is very rare to be the best at something.

14. People of all genders are autistic.

Right now, more boys and men get diagnosed with autism than girls and women. Boys are diagnosed with autism about 3 times as much as girls, but that doesn’t mean that there are more autistic boys than autistic girls.

The tests doctors use to diagnose autism were made just by looking at boys. Doctors decided what autism means by looking at boys, so a lot of autistic women and girls get left out. They are autistic, but doctors don’t notice.

Plus, autistic people are lots of different genders. There are more genders than just boys and girls, but nobody is counting people who aren’t boys or girls.

Since we are missing so many people, the autism diagnosis numbers are wrong. We don’t know what the real numbers are, but we do know that people of all genders can be autistic.

15. People of all races are autistic.

Anyone of any race can be autistic. Because of racism, white people get diagnosed with autism more than people of color. But people of color are autistic just as often as white people.

The tests doctors use to diagnose autism were made just by looking at white boys. Doctors decided what autism means by looking at white boys, and they didn’t think about autistic people who aren’t white boys. That’s why people of color get diagnosed with autism a lot less. They are autistic, but doctors don’t notice. Now, doctors are starting to notice more, but people of color still don’t get diagnosed as often as white people.

Autistic kids of color might not get diagnosed with autism, or they might get diagnosed with other disabilities instead of autism. For example, they might get diagnosed with an intellectual disability, or a mental health disability. A lot of times, the diagnosis is wrong! Doctors have wrong ideas about people of color, so they diagnose people of color with other disabilities instead of autism. This isn’t fair!

People of color should get the right diagnosis. Everyone should know that people of color can be autistic, and that people of color are part of the autistic community.

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