hi everyone i'm amythest and welcome to
this week's episode of ask an autistic I
wanna run a Sun to shine a light be the
change we want set things right even
waiting in the dark for so long
the idea of neurodiversity the
neurodiversity movement and and the
ideas of autism and disability
acceptance are topics that have been
coming up a lot and I've been getting a
lot of questions about them so I thought
I'd do a video today to talk about
neurodiversity and about acceptance and
to hopefully clear up a few
misconceptions about neuro diversity and
answer some of your guys questions about
it so let's get started
neuro diversity is a movement that arose
out of the social model of disability in
response to the medical model of
disability and cure culture the
neurodiversity movement while being a
movement and a concept on its own is
also a part of the larger disability
rights movement which is a social
justice and civil rights movement um by
disabled people for disabled people
because the neurodiversity movement has
arisen out of the life experiences and
the struggles and the accomplishments of
autistic people and other neurodivergent
people it is something that's kind of
hard to define basically there isn't a
neurodiversity manifesto there aren't
rules that you have to follow to be a
part of the neurodiversity movement but
there are some generally accepted
principles these ideas behind
neurodiversity to put it simply
neurodiversity states that everybody on
the planet has a different brain and
that's okay
you may have heard the terms
neurotypical and neural atypical or
neurotypical and neurodivergent these
terms are used by members of the
neurodiversity community to
differentiate the majority that is
neurotypicals
from the minority which is neural
atypical brains there are some people
who don't really like the terms
neurotypical and no atypical stating
that since every single person on the
planet has a different brain that there
is no neurotypical and that a better
term for neuro atypical might be neural
minority but the most widely used terms
are neuro typical and neuro atypical
neuro typical referring to the larger
majority people whose brains might fall
under the umbrella of normal that is
that they don't fit the criteria for any
neurological conditions or developmental
disabilities or mental illnesses people
who are neuro atypical or neurodivergent
or in the neuro minority however you
want to say it they do have different
brains in the majority meaning that
their brains with the criteria for a
neurological condition developmental
disability or mental illness or any
combination of the three the
neurodiversity movement asserts that
variation in the human brain is a part
of the human experience and then it's an
expected part of being human that there
has always been variation in neuro type
and that there will always be variation
in neuro type and that differences in
neuro type aren't necessarily inherently
bad or harmful and that the variations
and differences that do exist with a
neuro type are not something that should
be discouraged or eradicated
so what are some of them myths the
misconceptions out there about
neurodiversity firstly because
neurodiversity is very closely entwined
with autism and disability acceptance
some people believe that neurodiversity
means that you don't do anything to help
the disabled person in question that's
not the case some people seem to think
that the neurodiversity movement is anti
treatment or anti therapy and again not
the case the neurodiversity movement
asserts that the differences in narrow
type things that aren't harmful but are
just a different way of being don't need
to be corrective so what that means is
that an autistic persons natural
autistic behaviors the ways that they
naturally express themselves and
communicate shouldn't be corrected to be
more neurotypical looking or more
neurotypical sounding and that this is
actually harmful to autistic people so
in that way yes neurodiversity is
against trying to make autistic people
seem more neurotypical making that that
looking normal
that trying to seem less disabled the
priority that's wrong but when
neurodiversity isn't against is things
like occupational therapy for sensory
processing disorder or speech therapy
for speech impairments or speech
dyspraxia the neurodiversity movement
isn't against treatments either in fact
we support the use of safe and effective
treatments medicine biomedical
treatments that have been proven and
they do not carry a risk of harm greater
than the benefit some of these safe and
effective treatments might be the use of
medication to treat ADHD or anxiety
disorders or depression and of course in
autistic people who have comorbid
conditions that is conditions existing
alongside of their autism like insomnia
depression social anxiety epilepsy OCD
ADHD neurodiversity movement doesn't say
you shouldn't treat those things in fact
you should but what doesn't benefit from
treatments or from biomedical
intervention is autism itself there is
no key
for autism and so what neurodiversity
does not support is any attempts to use
therapy to force autistic people and
children to try to look as neurotypical
as possible and the ineffective
expensive and or dangerous treatments
like mms that people claim to be able to
cure or lessen the symptoms of autism
neurodiversity does not support anything
that isn't safe or that isn't
scientifically proven kind of in the
same vein another myth about
neurodiversity is that the
neurodiversity movement is against
professional diagnosis or that we
believe self diagnosis is better while
it's true that there are somewhat two
stick people out there who will never
receive an official diagnosis whether
you pursue a diagnosis for yourself or
for your child is is your choice and the
neurodiversity movement accepts that not
everyone will have the money or the
resources or the time or even the
accessibility to services to to get a
diagnosis there are a lot of reasons
that an autism diagnosis might really
come in handy particularly for children
who need an IEP or a 504 plan or for
anybody who's seeking accommodation in
the workforce but again receiving a
professional diagnosis is just not a
viable option for lots of autistic
people on our planet I think pretty much
everyone can agree that having a
diagnosis can be very helpful it's just
not necessarily necessary to know
yourself that you are autistic and to be
a part of the autistic community and to
be a part of the neurodiversity movement
next myth about neuro diversity is that
it's only for autistic people while the
neurodiversity movement did start in
large part due to the organization of
the autistic community it's pretty
widely accepted now that anybody who is
neuro atypical or in the neuro minority
kind of falls under the umbrella of
neuro diversity and is welcome to be
part of the community so that's people
who have developmental or learning
disabilities like Down syndrome ADHD
epilepsy dyspraxia dyslexia and then
mental illnesses as well conditions like
depression and social anxiety and OCD
and bipolar disorder kind of attached to
that myth that neurodiversity is just
for autistic people is the myth that
neurodiversity is only for the
high-functioning autistic people I can
kind of see how this myth came about
especially since there's such a
pervasive misunderstanding of what the
differences between high functioning and
low functioning autism and what the
autistic experience is like and wrong
ideas about non-speaking autistic people
but there are lots of a non-speaking
autistic people or autistic people who
would be considered classically autistic
or low functioning the support
neurodiversity and that do you advocate
for autism acceptance and I'll link to
the blogs and writings of a few of these
non-speaking autistic advocates in the
video description below if you'd like to
check that out the last myth that I will
cover today is that the neurodiversity
movement says that autism isn't a
disability and I've touched on this
lightly in a recent video but in short
autism is a disability autistic people
are disabled
we are impaired that means that autistic
people need accommodation to be able to
have equal access in society and to
things like education and the workforce
that means that we need to have our
differences and our impairments thought
of and accommodated for so that we have
equal access to level the playing field
so to speak but neurodiversity asserts
that autism as well as being a
disability is also a difference and that
there are parts of the autistic
experience of the autistic neuro tape
that aren't inherently bad or harmful
the orange inferior they are just
different
I hope this videos answered some
questions for you guys and cleared up
some moving myths and misconceptions
about our diversity out there and of
course because the neurodiversity
movement doesn't have a leader
there's no manifesto and we're not this
monolith I am NOT speaking for every
person who have a case for
neurodiversity
this is just I think general principles
that the neurodiversity movement tends
to follow and fall in line with and to
conclude I just like say that you guys
probably noticed but the books are back
pretty exciting I know that many of you
guys missed them since we got into
summer on the trees in our yard
everything got really fluffy and green
lots of leaves which is lovely and nice
but it really blocked the light in here
so I had to move up closer to the window
and I was using that white backdrop and
I didn't like it as much I like to be my
bed books but thanks to the very
generous contribution to my GoFundMe
campaign by an anonymous donator I was
able to purchase two umbrella lights
which you can't see what I'm looking at
them right now so I'll be fiddling with
my camera in the next couple weeks and
figuring out exactly how to use these
babies and I think it'll be great and
I'm very very grateful to everybody who
has contributed to my GoFundMe campaign
so far if you would like to check that
out again link in the video description
as well as a link to my blog thank you
very much for watching this episode of
ask an autistic
I want a renaissance to shine a light be
the change we want some things right
even away
look for so long