Ellie Wilson
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And when we call them high functioning, we tend to ignore that that is the reality.
And on the other hand, calling someone low functioning is a jerk move.
I would never call someone low functioning to their face or otherwise.
And I think that we should move away from that language out of respect for a lot of autistic people who
may not speak, for instance, or may not have a full-time job or may have high support needs, but still have more to contribute to their families or communities than most people expect.
Yeah, and Clarence, your point is so well made and so astute and sort of circles us back to the previous point we were talking about with stigma, which is like, where does that emotional drive come with families to sort of defend themselves
their kid, or, you know, to sort of insist that they need help.
That usually is sort of a response to the social landscape of autism rather than the medical landscape of autism.
And it's a clear indicator that that's where most of our work has to be done.
Like one framework for that as intriguing as an idea as it is, I think what ends up happening and you sort of alluded to it is that those plans become specific to a certain environment.
So like there's a clear process of how you are supposed to put one of those plans together and
That's the individualized education plan that you talked about.
There are certainly plans that people can make that have to do with their job and where they work, what kind of supports they need, what kind of accommodations they can get, what kind of disclosure they need to make to their boss or their colleagues so that they are better understood.
Um, there are certainly plans that certain types of therapists make with an autistic person in their family where they, again, might sort of be learning to better understand their own needs and how to advocate for those needs in different settings.
But there is no sort of universal plan that people make.