Caroline Foran

And that's very hard to live in the world with.

It's very hard to be a child with.

It's very hard to parent someone with.

But I think the more preferred term, and I'm just learning all of this now, is a pervasive drive for autonomy.

Oh, that's so much nicer.

Well, it's a lot nicer.

Yeah, I mean, we're only a few months in, so I would like be so far from describing myself as like coming on radio and being an expert about autism.

And the language is changing all the time and what we're learning about changes all the time.

And even within autism, you know, they say you've met one autistic person, you've just met one autistic person.

There's so much variation.

So I can only speak from the experience of my son and his particular needs and his personality and how it shows up for him.

So pervasive?

Pervasive drive for autonomy.

So basically what that means is

His nervous system is set to a very high point as a rule almost all the time.

Anything that his body or brain perceives as a demand, and it's a perception of a demand, it doesn't have to be an ostensibly like, I'm telling you to put your shoes on.

It can be very subtle, but that registers in his nervous system as a threat and that activates his fight or flight response.

And it's that black and white and it's that immediate, but it's also...

People who are experts in it describe it as a nervous system disability.

It's a profile within autism, so it currently sits under the autistic umbrella as a neurotype.