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During a Q/A I held st @ChicoStstr with autistic young adults and parents, I listened to a 17yo autistic boy discuss how accepting the normalcy of disability, and learning self-advocacy had radically improved his life. I was smiling, but trying so hard not to cry.
His mom was there, and she echoed that too. “His friends see him as normal because he sees himself and autism as normal. It’s just a fact of life.” She then told me aside “I really can see him becoming an advocate and developing as a leader.” I could see that too.
This wasn’t a mom academically versed in the neurodiversity paradigm (from what I could tell). She was just a mom who accepted her son and his disability, and encouraged him to accept that as well. No “woe is me,” no “Autism is a superpower!” Just...normal. That’s powerful.
Afterwards, we had a discussion about him taking ASL in high school and him being inspired by Deaf/HH culture and it’s shared similarities with autistic socializing. His observations were so nuanced, so deep, that I felt like I should be taking notes.
He noted how he had a teacher who really pushed him hard to develop #SelfAdvocacy. We talked about how that provided him a platform to build all sorts of other navigations and skills. Of course, I told him about @autselfadvocacy as well. He was happy to learn they existed.
Most autistic adults my age were never taught these things. As a result, I find we tend to have to continuously re-teach normalcy to ourselves in a thousand little ways. The fact that he confidently could say ‘This disability. This is normal,” at 17 was such a joy to see.
This was this happy, self-accepting autistic teen boy. He was like a confident @Lizzo lyric come to life. He was a happy, self-accepting teen w/ lots of challenges, yes. But, lots of different people have lots of different challenges in lots of different ways. This was just his.
All the interactions I’ve had so far with autistic young adults and parents at the Northern California Autism Symposium here at @ChicoState have been so informative and meaningful. Still, this one will stick with me for awhile.
