Supportive (Not Authoritarian) Ways to Help Autistics

I just want to link a great video by "Orion Kelly - that Autistic Guy" called "20 Tips for Managing Demand Avoidance in Autistic Kids. These can also be used for adults if we change them up a bit to suit our needs.

I love these approaches, as opposed to the ABA mess, because these approaches are supportive, caring, inclusive, and not geared towards only making allistic people feel more comfortable around autistic individuals. It's not an authoritarian way of Making people do things, it's a way of working With individuals for their Actual support and healthy growing. There are so many ways in which authoritarian "trainings" actually traumatize individuals and leave lasting impressions of shame, guilt, feeling like a burden, and are likely big reasons why autistic individuals have a shorter lifespan (due to unaliving themselves). Please, just because autistic individuals have a different way of conceptualizing things, doesn't mean we're too much, or need corrected. This is just one of the differences all human beings have. Left/right handedness, autistic/allistic, color of hair, skin, height, etc. We don't need to be colonized.

Also, I love being able to Chunk tasks, and giving myself the option of doing a list of 5 and then I'll at least do 3 of them, based on how many spoons/marbles I have left. :)

Thanks for reading. EzriKai Broam, LCSW, LADC