What kind of environment allows this nervous system to thrive?

On intuition, hindsight, and the question I did not know I was already asking

People often ask me what I think about ABA.

Honestly, I do not feel it is my place to tell parents what support they should choose for their children, especially when many families are navigating systems where the available options are incredibly limited. Most parents are trying to make the best decisions they can with the information and resources they have.

Someone recently asked me a different question, though.

If you had known your sons were autistic when they were little, would you have done anything differently?

My answer surprised them.

No.

I am autistic. I was raised by autistic parents. And without realising it, my ex-husband and I raised our autistic children largely by intuition.

I remember buying one of those giant parenting books when the twins were toddlers. I kept reading about what early childhood development was supposed to look like, and almost none of it matched what I w…