3 Autism Myths That Need To Retire

One of the hardest parts about parenting two autistic children isn’t the autism itself, it’s the fact that people make assumptions about them before they’ve had the chance to know them.

The word autism is still so stigmatized that people avoid using it altogether. Instead, they reach for euphemisms, often because of the myths they’ve been taught about what autism is.

So let’s separate fact from fiction, because Autism is so much more than the misconceptions that surround it.

This is one of the most harmful myths, as it often changes the way an autistic person is treated.

The ability to speak is not the same as the ability to understand.

Speech is a complex motor act, and some autistic nonspeakers have something called apraxia of speech. Apraxia makes it difficult for the brain to plan and coordinate the movements required for speech.

Difficulty getting words out does not tell us how much someone understands, and speech isn’t the only form of communication.

This is why presuming competence is so important, and the least dangerous assumption we can make.

Many nonspeakers who use AAC, spell, type, or use other methods to communicate have described feeling trapped, infantilized, and underestimated—when all the while, they have understood far more than the people around them assumed.

Autism is not a monolith. There’s a reason it’s called a spectrum, and that’s because it encompasses a vast range of experiences and presentations.

Assumptions about autism having a look are rooted, in part, in the fact that early autism research and diagnostic criteria were largely based on young white boys. As our understanding of autism has expanded, so has our recognition of how differently it can present from person to person.

While some manifestations of a person’s autism may be visible (for example, stimming), and some co-occurring conditions may have physical characteristics, autism doesn’t have one look, just like autistic people don’t have one way of being.

We hear this myth a lot, but the truth is that just like everyone else, autistic folks are either more or less empathetic.

They may, however, express empathy in different ways than we would typically expect. Someone might feel another person’s emotions deeply but not know how or be able to outwardly express that. They may communicate empathy in ways that aren’t usually recognized as such.

This is where the double empathy problem comes in. For a long time, autistic people were framed as having a deficit in understanding non-autistic people.

But communication goes both ways. Non-autistic people can have just as much difficulty understanding autistic experiences and ways of communicating.

When we only recognize empathy when it looks the way we expect it to, we risk mistaking a difference in expression for an absence empathy.

We can acknowledge that autism is a disability without reducing it to its challenges and differences.

We can pursue support without performing typicality.

We can talk about the hard parts and still see the whole person.

And when we do, we create a world where all of us belong.

Love,

Lei