Autism Stories

“Sometimes autistic movement differences can cause pain or functional limitations, and sometimes they are truly just differences. They may look different from the "reference norm," but they actually work just fine for that person and their body. It takes a lot of teamwork between the patient and the provider in order to tease that out,” says Iris Warchall. Iris joins this episode of Autism Stories...

“The last commissions paper about the future of clinical autism research I think is a very good example of how there is mismatch between the priorities and needs of autistic people and the priorities of researchers. Autistic people should be included as equal partners in autism research, but that is currently rarely happening,” says Heini Natri. Heini joins this episode of Autism Stories to discus...

“The lines are so meaningful. Whenever you're capturing something, the lines alone can trigger the mind to know what you're looking at- just the lines. Using clean lines and just spotlighting certain colors, I'm filtering out all of that extra information that even neurotypical minds have to sort through,” says Amanda Hebert Hughes. Amanda joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss creating a...

“There are so many community priorities that have just not had anywhere close to adequate research, and I think that part of the reason why the research hasn't gone further, is because they haven't, for the most part, they have not had an adequate theory of autism. They're trying to make sense of this phenomena without a uniform theory to ground it on.” Dr. Wenn Lawson and Fergus Murray return to...

“There are certain things that neurotypical researchers are doing that I appreciate, but they get things wrong. Fundamentally they don’t understand the experiential side of things. Then experience alone doesn’t always work because a lot of us are living with multiple diagnoses so I love the idea of teaming up and finding patterns and themes and starting to understand,” says Denielle Rose. Denielle...

“When I came back off my period of time out with burnout I suddenly realized we need a top down disclosure approach to mental health problems. If senior doctors aren’t disclosing, if patients get that doctors don’t get that then it becomes more stigmatized. If we don’t disclose nobody else will disclose. Openness means that somebody else who is struggling may feel like they can talk about their me...

“These are all components we experience that vary from the neuromajority sexual experience. The more we can talk about the more we can start having dialogue around this and sharing with one another what we experience and don’t like frees us up from internalized Shane and empowers us to live our best thriving life what serves us or aligns with us especially sexually,” says Carol Jeane Whittington....

“In our quest for perpetual comfort, we grab at every resource to enhance our short life. This selfish exploitation is directly creating it. We are already in a state of happiness if our thoughts move beyond material and physical comforts. We are in paradise and need to preserve it,” says Vikram Kumar. Vikram joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss his poetry, spelling to communicate, and...

“Particularly in the medical profession, sometimes the answer is to want to physically do something, to fix something, to want to make something better. It’s not meant in a negative way, but sometimes the answer is to stand back, give it a couple of minutes, and see what happens. If they calm down on their own, they don’t need medication,” says David Crisp. Davis joins this episode to discuss auti...

“I was so fascinated with human interaction and emotions, of course from having to mask and study that. I really enjoyed how words on a page can make me feel and how I can use those to express myself better and to have others understand what I want to express,” says Christele Gassant. Christele joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss her collection of poetry and the factors that led to him...

"Astrology I now know is undoubtedly my special interest. It was bringing me back to life while I was learning about it, and learning about it was unpacking all my trauma and helping me see parts of myself that I'd never been able to either acknowledge at all before or was seeing in a much more healthy light,” says Colleen Harrison. Colleen joins this episode to discuss how astrology has allowed h...

“I've lived a really long time not knowing that I'm autistic. Since people weren't being diagnosed with autism when I was a child, that must mean there's actually loads of people like me out there who are autistic and either haven't realized or are just finding out. Maybe it would be useful if I talk about it on the internet?” says Purple Ella. Ella Ella joins this episode to discuss being a digit...

"In many anime and manga, there are characters with disabilities, but for the majority, either they're used as a reason for the main character to protect the evils of the world from. Usually, as the stories progress, they fade into the background. That wasn't the case with Code Gease,” says Olivia McAdams. Olivia joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss disability and autonomy in anime char...

"We noticed at that point there were, anecdotally, trends in the community, which both I'd experienced and other people have experienced around not being able to access mental health services, and also, having very negative experiences if they had access to mental health services. We wanted to see, basically, how much that was anecdotal or how much that was a trend,” says Sonny Hallett. Sonny join...

“The most and biggest hurdle is communication, because of my sensory, mind, and body issues which distract my actions. RPM helps me to communicate and provide a means to learn academics. Being an autistic adult itself is a hurdle. In spite of all these challenges, I try to focus and do my best to become a journalist,” says Rohit Dixit. Rohit joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss communic...

“One of the sexist marketing words in the world people view is neurodiversity, but it's so much more than that. It's more than a marketing word, it's more than just a nice concept to put in your advertising in a bid to get more people in. Because you can see very quickly the people that have taken this approach: oh, let's just scribble out autism and just put neurodiversity there,” says Jude Morro...

“My podcast arose because I wanted to share more stories about real, authentic people working to conserve the ocean, and to share its wonder with a diverse audience. I wanted to share my own journey learning to become a water person. And I wanted to see if hosting a podcast as a minimally-speaking autistic was possible,” says Danny Whitty. Danny joins this episode to discuss his podcast The Ocean...

If you missed Stimmy Vibrations here is a chance to listen to the Autism Stories episode for the event. Christiana Koch joins this episode to discuss working remotely, her journey moving away from STEM, and her essential role in making Stimmy Vibrations a reality. We also feature the comedy of Joe Wells and R3llie on this episode. To learn more about Christiana Koch you can find her on LinkedIn. T...

"What I find a lot with the autistic community, is that it's really hard for us to break through that, what I nicknamed, the puzzle piece ceiling. There are just so many spaces that are designed to not have autistic input, that it can be really distressing and exhausting having to push against them all the time," says Lindy Treece. Lindy joins this episode of Autism Stories to discuss her activism...

"I do have to say that getting aide support is difficult in the current climate. Even though I have 15 hours a week approved by insurance, I am looking at hiring less-experienced aides out of pocket through the internet and word of mouth because we spent nearly a year trying to find an agency to cover my 15 insurance hours," says Ezekiel-Bethany Goff. Ezekiel-Bethany joins this episode to discuss...

"There's probably a company or a person in the world who wants to be active in a field that has to do with your special interest, who wants to globalize their service, and that's the key thing. The fact that we're all so connected  means that having subject matter expertise in something, and having the ability to express that expertise in more than one language is an extremely valuable skill...

"It surprised me how many things I could find once I was able to kind of organize them. I didn't expect to be able to find that many books, especially written by autistic folks themselves. It didn't seem like there would be a lot out there, and there really is a lot," says CJ LaFontaine. CJ joins this episode to discuss creating The Autistic Book Masterlist, an extensive database dedicated to...

"Many times, well-intentioned people, so-called "experts," chart our course, but we are the experts on us. That's why I call myself a lived-experience expert. Non-speakers need to be consulted, and ultimately, be empowered to decide on issues that affect them," says Noah Seback. Noah Seback joins this episode of Autism Stories to talk about dispelling myths about non-speakers, starting his busines...

"When we look at things that specifically are needed for autistic people- clear communication, transparent practices, flexibility- those things for some autistic people are absolutely necessary to be able to work. Those are also things that make everyone else much happier in the workplace. So, if you design for the margin, then really all people are going to benefit," says Ludmila Praslova. Ludmil...

"I'm the kind of person, I come alongside people. You learn more walking together instead of standing there pointing fingers from a distance. I'm a side by side leader. I always tell my crew, "It's never about me, it's about we," says Mary Nixon-Hahn. Mary joins this episode to talk about being an autistic woman in the US military, her experiences of working in customer service, and authoring a bo...