Every April, the words Autism Acceptance Month come to mind for me as an observance that I have taken to heart since I was a young teen. But what also comes to mind is the daily reality of personal experience growing up with neurodiversity.
As a Bay Area native, I grew up in a very diverse community, and one of them growing up was the neurodiverse community. My older brother has severe autism on top of being nonverbal, so naturally, as the younger sibling, my world was exposed to and intertwined with the same community. While I don’t go through that same toils, as a family member, the labels like autism, special needs, and neurotypicals often come to mind when I think of it.
For those who don’t fully understand, autism, or known as autism spectrum disorder, is a neurodevelopmental condition in which the brain develops differently from other children, particularly in areas of social interactions and behavioral patterns. To clear up some misconceptions, autism is not a set of pre-wired or determined traits like intellect or social skills. It’s usually associated with umbrella terms like Asperger’s disorder but doesn’t fall into the classification of diseases, mental illnesses, or other intertwined conditions like ADHD or OCD.
Many of these behavior differences have always been noticeable, especially as I grew older. For things like resistance to touch, repetitive behaviors, lack of eye contact, and other subtle cues, it became clear that these weren’t normal behaviors that most others would easily understand. I had no idea where they came from as a kid, but they ultimately caught my eye as I began to understand and mature.
As a high school student, I took part in the Best Buds club. It was like a social club where we got to play games, and crafts, and engage in social play with some of the special needs students on campus during lunch hour. The students we hung out with were genuinely kind, a lot of them loved playing with us, and many who came to our club were also from similar backgrounds of having a family member with autism. Looking back on it, I realized this experience brought a sense of maturity and awareness that I normally wouldn’t have had otherwise at my age without it.
This brings me to the elephant in the room that the neurodiverse and families of neurodiverse individuals come to: ableism. Ableism is a form of discrimination against disabled individuals and communities—it is generally rooted in the belief that individuals need fixing or don’t look or work the same as neurotypical—that is people who are not on the autism spectrum— individuals. Because like all discrimination, it works in quiet ways. Refusing services, assistance, infantilizing, or stigmatizing are all harmful manifestations of ableism, and the list could honestly go on.
As a family member of an autistic individual, the best way to combat ableism is to show sensitivity and attention towards the neurodiverse community. Have informed expert research on neurodiversity and offer your support for the neurodiverse communities. And if you are neurodiverse yourself, it’s okay. You didn’t ask for it, and it feels hard to live with every day. It’s exhausting a lot of the time. Don’t be afraid to share your story with neurodiversity or have a loved one with neurodiversity because that means being able to share your voice with your community. It doesn’t just have to be on Autism Acceptance Month; there’s always a choice to show up and come out. And that means being able to show your contributions to the neurodiverse community.
What are some of your thoughts on autism? Let us know @HerCampusSJSU!