New Book Warning. This is out in the next few days. Another…

Here's the parent's wishlist for what they want the services to deliver. I'll paraphrase it as
"See this autistic child? Make it into one that does this for me, so I feel better and have to do zero work in understanding a different and valid social communication system."

Meantime, in the real world, countless thousands of autistic people explain what sort of pain, distress, and relationship-smashing results from being forced to live inauthentically, to please others.
But let's ignore all of those, because Mom Wants Her Perfect Child At Any Cost.

Here's another snippet of the weird and irrelevant stuff upon which the author builds their argument. The false belief that there's a Real Person behind autism (!). And that diagnostic professionals haven't a clue how to tell a shy child from a psychotic child or an autistic one

Autism isn't shyness.
Autism isn't being psychotic.
Being autistic is a different social communication system, every bit as effective as the nonautistic methods.
https://t.co/Q0MGgBnmVr
A different sensory system. A different degree of focus.
For many, a need for routine/

The mistake is to look at our very different way of socialising with others and think, "Oh no, my child is broken - they have no emotions - they will never care about others - this is terrible - fix it!"
In fact, the exact opposite is more true. Deep caring for others is common

So many parents waste their autistic child's childhood, and every penny they have, chasing ways to 'fix' their child.

And books like this take yet more money off them.

It annoys me greatly. (Can you tell...?)

What happens when we've forced normal socialisation onto our autistic children, e.g. eye contact.
Do they go on to lead fabulous lives?
Well...generally no. This is a poll. Vast majority said no, it didn't lead to a better quality of a life for them.
So, who is it for?/

But it's worse.
We have excellent research showing camouflaging our autism is a factor in greater rates of suicide.
https://t.co/LJGUlMpr0s This by the team led by Sarah Cassidy for example.
Parents are being lured into this alleged nirvana, and risking their child's life.

Because we usually get someone alleging that we Just Don't Care About Those With High Support Needs, yes, we do.
Making them suicidal, and forcing an inauthentic mask to please the parent, isn't going to improve their life, is it, eh?

Start learning things that actually help.

The author is edging towards their own personal 'aha!' moment here, because they're right - we do need to look for strengths. But their mistake is to assume that our strengths look like nonautistic strengths. That autism is nothing but deficit.
It's just 1940s nonsense.

What helps:
Enabling us to be our authentic selves.
Learning about autism from autistic people.
Realising their own behaviour influences how we respond, and altering their own approaches.
Watching this 2 min video of sensory hell, with the sound turned up: https://t.co/5W71N6hmwU

And when you've watched that, consider how that child was ever going to look like they were calm and caring, in that deafening terrifying stench?
Get autistic people involved in assessing environments.
Be allies, not erasers.
Listen and learn.
Thank you for reading.

PS - the author is a fan of this approach https://t.co/AZCC1A6OSX DIR-floortime. It assumes autistic children don't want to interact with the outside world, so by overloading them with play requests all day, you 'help them grow'.
Well, no. You teach masking.