Autism Stories

"After college discovered that there actually was an autistic rights movement...I finally found a group of people who could embrace me and accept me for how I was and who understand where I was coming from and basically loved me", says Sebastian Joseph. Sebastian joins this episode to discuss their work as a direct support professional, sheltered workshops, and love of rats. To learn mor...

"Snakes are so instinctual. I mean, all animals are, but snakes...they're elegant and magnificent. They know when to take time for themselves. They're not pack animals. I think as autistic people, we can probably identify with them too. We're very instinctive and a lot of us feel the environment around us acutely", says Rebecca Lavender. Rebecca joins this episode  to discuss...

"I just feel like a very normal person sharing my life. Sometimes that can be boring. I'm a college student, I'm a gym rat, I'm a gamer, and I stay inside most of the time. But what I can provide in my content is connection and community, especially within the communities that I have", says Aura Joy. Aura joins this episode to discuss being a content creator and studying radi...

"Each person has to decide what might help them through it, and not be afraid to have the courage to do it their own way. This for me defines grief as a spectrum. Each person has their own style", says MeiMei Liu. MeiMei joins this episode to discuss grief as well as her poetry. To learn more about the Autism & Grief Project visit https://www.autismandgrief.org . To learn about MeiMe...

"We need autistic people working together to build our own understanding of how we should operate the world based on our own needs and desires. To understand ourselves rather than trying to understand ourselves through the prism of another person, through non-autistic people", says Ash Sorrels. Ash  joins this episode to discuss the Autism Campus Inclusion Conference, being a  doctoral s...

"Noise cancelling headphones? There's no noise in my house! I am all by myself- it's just me, the cats, and the dog! I put them on and I had this visceral, really strong reaction. I felt like I was going to cry. Because I realized I heard the lights, the neighbor mowing their lawn 3 houses down, the refrigerator...I heard everything", says Dr. Shannan Palma. Dr. Palma  joins us f...

"If their only images of what autism looks like are white, it can make them feel even more alienated. Even something as simple as when you're having autism awareness month in school, make sure not only highlighting Albert Einstein, but people like Stephen Wiltshire,  or Questlove. Just show people who look like your student body, so they don't sort of attribute those strengths to whit...

"The people who make assumptions about social norms and generalizability, are also the people who create generalizable standards, right? I say this as a curriculum developer in my day job. The way that I work to design curriculum tends to be the opposite of how I see a lot of other curricula; other forms of teaching. Because we are centering neurodivergent learning styles", says Dr. Shan...

"I decided to create this scale because I think it's important to know that autistic people are very diverse. What one autistic person experiences, doesn't mean another autistic person also experiences the same thing. That's why it was important for me to create a scale that probably covers large parts of the autism community, because there's not only one picture of an autistic person", says Hacki...

"In the beginning of golf, I happen to know that there were only 13 rules made. Now, there's a whole thick, little rule book of when, and if, and that, and lawyer language that nobody understands. Do I drop it here or not? It's yes or no. It should be black or white, but it's not", says Tammy Mayfair. Tammy and Billy Mayfair talk about  how the rules of professional golf are...

"I really felt that this was maybe my calling to give back, not just to the game of golf, but to sports and to the community. Something I'm very passionate about, I've learned over the past three years, I love discussing about this, helping people, and to see little things that I can tell people that might help them along. Coming out with it was never a big issue", says Billy May...

"It was nice to have that regularity. I knew what podcasts were going to drop on what days. I can expect to hear those familiar voices and feel those familiar sensations on my familiar walks. That's a great comfort when you're an autistic person....my thanks to anyone who's done a podcast on Autism Stories over the last 12 months", says Christopher Banham. Christopher  joins...

"The place that I'm currently working is a hotbed for neurodivergence. A lot of folks there that kind of just understand a lot of things that are happening everyday. You'll see folks in the hall taking a stim break, and it's totally normal. Nobody's bothering them, or worried about what they're wearing, or what they're doing, as long as they're not hurting anybody....

" As we look at wrestling as a society with the complications of this virus, it's essential that autism, developmental disability, neurodiversity, be at the table. We're one of the populations that's most at risk for negative outcomes for this virus, both mental and physical. Nothing about us without us! We are not disposable", says Nicole LeBlanc. Nicole returns to Autism St...

"I do think that we should definitely remind neurotypicals, gently, that it is absolutely okay to have autistic character headcanons. Because we don't have a lot of good representation for our groups in the media, whereas they get to see themselves represented in media almost all the time. It's not hurting you, or detracting from what you see in the character. If anything, it's ac...

"It's at the start of session, I get a box of stim toys out. I go and put them on the desks, and then I sit down with the occupational therapists and the consultants. I start talking to them about it. They all look at me like, this is really, really weird, why are you talking about these things? But at the end of the session they're all playing with them! ", says Loren Snow. Lore...

"It's a gift to be able to say this isn't really right. How can we make this better? That's what I do with my clients. My goal as a doula is to make the world more accommodating, because I don't think the world is accommodating enough. I've had tons of experiences with what it's like to not be accommodated. If I can make anyone's experience on earth a little softer...

" Research is showing that there actually isn't a lot of benefit to homework. When I have parents request homework, I will send it, but I also encourage them to make it playful. Let's say I have some students struggling with reading basic sight words. I will send home those sight words they're struggling with. But I'll say, parents, instead of doing flash cards, to make it int...

"Misconceptions of Deaf people is that hearing people, people who can hear around 100%, views would be that Deaf people cannot drive, read, write, understand English, and that is far from the truth. Being Deaf does not and should not hinder someone, yet it does, because of these stereotypes of what Deaf people can and cannot do", says Kaishawna. Kaishawna joins this episode to discuss mi...

"There were great schools, but none of them were very neurodivergent-friendly. It was all very, very fast paced. You never really learn to talk to clients. You're just kind of given a dog. There will be 20 other students and one teacher and you just have to figure it out as you go. Even someone who was neurotypical, they were struggling with it", says Stephenie Calhoun. Stephenie joi...

"Autistic students are very often not given services and supports that is evidence-based according to atypical evidence-based. Meaning that, very often, I think, autistic students on campus are expected to camoflauge, to mask, to fit in, to be like everyone else, as opposed to just be themselves", says Rabbi Simcha Weinstein. Rabbi Weinstein joins this episode to discuss being a college...

"Because I'm autistic, I avoided a lot of games that involve reading people's faces. I was really averse to games like poker where it's basically just 100%, wall to wall, reading faces. What's really different is there's a bluffing element to Star Wars: the card game...the thing that made a difference for me was context. Because with poker, there's no context for why s...

"There still is a lot of stigma towards medium support needs and high support needs autistics. There's a lot of stigma about not being able to act neurotypical. I think there needs to be more talk about why that is. Why exactly do we feel the need to act neurotypical so much? I also want people to include all of the excluded types into the conversation- that needs to happen more", sa...

"It's hard to contend what it means to be a living creature in an area where it doesn't necessarily belong. I think I felt a lot of connection to the Lantern Fly because they're very beautiful and strange, and people don't understand them. I think that I felt a connection to being an LGBT person and then also being an autistic person, where I often feel like misunderstood and...

" I've been learning how to play the guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, ukulele, mandolin, and the harmonica...I've been taking guitar lessons for 6 years. I used to take a little bit of drum lessons, but not anymore. Everything else, I've been self taught", says Ryan Woodard. Ryan  joins this episode to discuss being a musician, being recognized by John Mayer, and plays one of h...