Learning to speak Autistic

Autistics are often taught how to speak neurotypical through therapy, teachers, parents, etc. 

They are taught that they must do this in order to fit in. The problem is that it goes against the grain in an autistic brain. In a previous post, I showed how much effort goes into this, and it causes major burnout.

You can find it here

One thing that we need to start doing (I already do this in my high school relationship classes) is teach people how to speak autistic. It’s much easier for neurotypicals to do this than vice versa. I made a video about it here:

Understanding how to speak autistic will help your autistic friends feel much more comfortable when you are hanging out with them. You don’t even have to speak it; you just have to be accepting of someone who speaks this way. I find that the friends I feel most comfortable around are the ones I can be authentically autistic.  

A few important skills include:

1)  No small talk- this is very offensive to my culture (just kidding, but we do hate it)

2) Infodumping: We like to dump large amounts of information on each other. With many of my friends, we just take turns doing this.

3) Talk about Special Interests: If you want to connect with an autistic, find out what their special interest is and ask them about it. It’s pretty much the easiest thing ever. 

Learning to speak autistic will also help prevent ableism. Most people don’t realize that autistic communication is just a different way of speaking. They think of it as lesser and “awkward”.

It makes it harder for us to make friends and get jobs. (future post on this) I made a YouTube video on how this makes it harder to get a job by flipping the script:
https://youtu.be/wmEJEt6M9U0