The AutSide Podcast

I had to make this one a video: Substack’s detector repeatedly called my recursive gestalt writing—and even a transcript of my own speech—100% AI. The absurdity became the experiment, and the experiment became the story. After completing the series, Why GLP Writers Write So Differently , I thought I had finished examining the recursive architecture of gestalt writing—the way meaning begins as a wh...

Hyperlexia can reveal gestalt processing—and conceal it. Jaime and Cathy trace the distance between reading, meaning, and writing, asking what each stage must uphold before original academic language can emerge on the page. This week’s conversation centred on the relationship among hyperlexia, gestalt language processing, autism, literacy, and writing across the lifespan. Cathy described hyperlexi...

A tiny Substack exchange became the doorway to ten essays on adult GLP writing, translation, masking, genre, and process. Sometimes the smallest corrections open the largest research questions. This series began with one of those tiny moments that most people would probably forget within the hour. I restacked another writer’s thoughtful essay, made what I thought was a light-hearted observation, a...

Today’s episode explores the profound connection between sensory overload and the distortion of time within the autistic experience. Rather than viewing overload as a mere physical reaction to external stimuli, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes it as a temporal collapse where the ability to sequence events, plan for the future, or recall past coping strategies vanish...

Today’s episode challenges the ableist assumption that an autistic meltdown or shutdown indicates a lack of interest in participating in society. Instead, these experiences represent the staggering physical and emotional cost of navigating environments that are not designed for neurodivergent needs. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that true accessibility must occur be...

A Sunday Mornings field note on two new GLP papers, Cathy’s absence, Towcester Abbey’s first research brief, and the slow work of moving from recognition to evidence without letting the measure destroy the meaning. This morning’s recording is a progress report from the middle of the work—not the triumphant end of a research arc, not the clean announcement of something finished, but the quieter, mo...

Today’s episode examines the concept of passing , or social masking, as an exhausting form of sensory labor performed by autistic individuals. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, explains that appearing “fine” in public is actually a complex process of hidden arithmetic , where the individual constantly calculates the personal cost of enduring overwhelming environments. Whilst o...

Today’s episode explores the complex sensory politics of food, arguing that for autistic individuals, eating is often a matter of safety and access rather than mere preference. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, challenges social labels like “picky” or “fussy,” reframing these behaviours as necessary responses to an overwhelming environment where smell and texture can be physic...

Today’s episode explores the complex sensory experiences of interoception and proprioception , detailing how many autistic individuals receive internal physical signals delayed or in an overwhelming rush. This lack of reliable biological timing means that fundamental needs like hunger, pain, and exhaustion often remain invisible until they reach a state of urgent crisis . The author of the source...

Today’s episode explores the sensory complexities of being autistic, focusing specifically on how clothing and touch impact daily life. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes how a seemingly minor issue, like a poorly fitting shirt or a scratchy seam , can act as a “private emergency” that drains an individual’s emotional and social energy. The text highlights a paradox w...

Today’s episode challenges the assumption that light is a neutral environmental feature, arguing instead that it can be a source of sensory aggression for autistic individuals. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, describes how common elements like fluorescent flicker , harsh glare, and visual clutter can distort a room until it becomes perceptually unreachable , leading to a los...

Today’s episode explores the profound impact of auditory overload on autistic individuals, moving beyond simple sensitivity to describe a total loss of language access. The article by Dr. Jaime Hoerricks explains that overwhelming environments, such as malls or offices, create a multiplicity of sounds that compete for attention and disrupt the brain’s ability to process speech. When the sensory sy...

Today’s episode explores the hidden physical and emotional toll of navigating a world that prizes autistic achievement over accessible inclusion . Rather than celebrating historic milestones, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, yearns for the ordinary dignity of an uneventful trip to the mall without sensory collapse. Dr. Hoerricks highlights how public spaces and diagnostic cri...

A conversation on Boolean logic, gestalt processing, script gardens, Sukhareva, queerness, and the professional humility required when meaning arrives whole before it can be segmented. Today’s conversation with Cathy began with the true/false Boolean piece , but the real centre of gravity was not Boole himself. It was the assumption Boole inherits: that meaning begins once a proposition can be sta...

Today’s episode explores the intersection of Boolean logic, language development, and gestalt processing , arguing that modern systems prematurely force human thought into binary categories like true or false. Whilst George Boole's mathematical logic created the infrastructure for the digital age, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, suggests this framework is often misapplied to...

A conversation with Cathy on my accepted GLP paper, failed assessment tools, cultural bias, literacy, maths, and the evidence already present in classrooms, case notes, and lives the system has not learned to see. This morning Cathy and I began with the news of my latest paper—not published yet, but accepted, which matters because it has passed the first gate. The paper asks what counts as evidenc...

A parent’s question about GLP opens an old grief script: who would I be if I got what I needed? On access, disability, transition, and the cost of surviving systems built around speech. A parent’s question about GLP, school, work, college, and love opened an older question in me: Who would I be if I got what I needed as a child? Today’s video follows that question into the places where access is n...

A reaction to the DOJ’s disability memo and the renewed threat of reinstitutionalisation, read through the older grammar of autism pathogenesis—where disabled lives become origin problems before they are treated as lives. In this episode of AutSide After Dark , I return to an older piece I wrote about the word pathogenesis and why it has never felt neutral when placed beside autism. The talk begin...

Attunement is not a warm-up to the real work. It is the work: the room prepared, the parent heard, the script honoured, the story given first, and the child met before the system measures them. I came into this conversation already flooded. Thirteen graduations. Thirteen young people I had known not as caseload numbers, not as IEP files, not as instructional problems to be remediated, but as whole...

When speech replaces language and algorithms reward explanation over recognition, entire forms of autistic knowing disappear. A deep dive into gestalt processing, meaning-making, visibility, and the pathways we build to find ourselves. This first episode of AutSide After Dark grows out of a question that has been following me for some time: what happens when the knowledge exists, but the pathways...

A reflection on gestalt processing, delayed understanding, and the politics of access. Sometimes discovery is not finding something new, but finally gaining the language and pathways needed to see what was there all along. In this week’s episode, I explore a recurring theme that has surfaced across much of my recent work: the difference between something existing and something being accessible. Us...

Today’s episode explores the critical distinction between mechanical hearing and the cognitive processing required to derive meaning from sound. For many neurodivergent individuals, the primary barrier to communication is not hearing loss, but rather the invisible labour of translating spoken words into understanding. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, highlights how auditory p...

Today’s episode provides a poignant critique of educational systems that champion “full inclusion” whilst failing to support neurodivergent and transgender individuals. Drawing from her personal experiences as an autistic trans educator, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, illustrates how institutional promises of equity often mask a reality of professional marginalisation and s...

Today’s episode explores the profound impact of identity-based language on the human dignity and social rights of autistic individuals. Through a 2022 essay and its 2026 update, the author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that choosing identity-first language over person-first labels is an act of self-determination rather than a mere semantic preference. Dr. Hoerricks challenge a...

A conversation about belonging, language, and meaning-making. From autistic community to reading comprehension, we explore what becomes possible when people are understood on their own terms rather than measured by performance. Today’s conversation felt so coherent because it was not really about three separate topics. Community, comprehension, and communication kept collapsing into one another. E...