Chapter 4

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

All of these ideas are wrong.
Non-speaking people don’t talk. That’s it.

Just because someone can’t talk doesn’t mean they have nothing to say.
It doesn’t mean they don’t care about people.
It doesn’t mean 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. Get to know them.
Don’t assume things because you don’t understand.

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

That is very silly.
Autistic people know that other people have thoughts.
Autistic people have said this for a long time.

In this book, we talk about what other people think a lot.
That shows that we know that other people have thoughts.
Maybe reading this book would help scientists understand how we think.

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

Some autistic people are very good at certain things.
They are better at these things than almost anyone else.
For example, they might know the day of the week of any day in history.
Maybe they can draw a city perfectly from memory.
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.

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.
This means that 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 diagnosisWhen a doctor says you are autistic. numbers are wrong.
We don’t know what the real numbers are.
What we do know is that people of all genders can be autistic.

Anyone of any race can be autistic.
White people get diagnosed with autism more than people of colorPeople who are not white. For example, black people are people of color..
This is because of racism.
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.
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.
They may get diagnosed with other disabilities instead of autism.
For example, they might get diagnosed with an intellectual disability.
They might get diagnosed with a mental health disability.
A lot of times, the diagnosisWhen a doctor says you are autistic. 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.
People of color are part of the autistic community.

• Mental Age Theory Hurts People with Disabilities – by Ivanova Smith – http://nosmag.org/mental-age-theory-hurts-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/
• Left Brain Right Brain: Autism News, Science, and Opinion – https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/
• “Putting on My Best Normal”: Social Camouflaging in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5509825/