Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article helps show that the miscommunication issue between autistic people and neurotypical people is not simply an autistic failure, but a failure on neurotypical peoples' parts as well.
There's a few stereotypes you can see in the presentation of autistic people mentioned here. Things like avoiding looking people in the eyes (can be overwhelming), literalist thinking, and repetitive movements (often used to calm ourselves in stressful situations) are all factors. It's gotten to the point where I can, in some circumstances, interact with a person and be able to tell almost immediately that they're neurodiverse.
Apparently, this article says, these behaviors look like the actions of a person being deceptive. Oddly enough, these behaviors are actually not particularly indicative of a person being deceptive... we as a culture simply think they are.
The implications go much, much further than the article suggests. In court, autistic people receive harsher sentences than our typically developing peers. But I'll bet dollars to doughnuts the same effect holds true in other arenas of life, such as job interviews and first impressions.
When we talk about autistic people being disabled, this is a major part of it: the way others see and react to us. Others' prejudices and failures are not our fault, but we're expected to bend over backwards to compensate for them. That's neither fair nor healthy for anyone involved.
It's the same expectation as saying, "well if women don't want to be sexually assaulted, they should wear clothing that hides every inch of skin." Or maybe more accurately, saying, "Well if black people don't want to be murdered by the police, they should act like they're white as much as possible and be as nonthreatening as possible at all times."
Because of this prejudice effect, autistic people are denied the chance for friendships, the ability to participate in our communities, job and volunteer opportunities, promotions, and general human consideration. We deserve better.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
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