https://t.co/pPzweDQNb2

https://t.co/6AXaWpMumj

https://t.co/8UVpeh0byM

These two statements are simultaneously true. There's a lot of AAC users who are systemically denied access to the internet. And There's a lot of AAC users who are online, and ignored, because of people believing no AAC users can be online. #AACawarenessmonth

It is so important to provide autistic people with sensory tools to support ourselves. Help us use those tools. When we communicate that we’re getting overwhelmed, we mean it. Help us take breaks, and respect our decisions not to participate in activities that cause us pain!

I kept asking, “How? I don’t understand, how is it not too loud for you?” I genuinely have no idea what it would be like, to be able to tolerate noise levels that high without some sort of ear protection. They can habituate, but I can’t. For me, the reverse happens.

When I felt like the panic was consuming my body and it got hard to move, I knew I had to take a break. I talked with my friends and asked them how the loud volume was affecting them. They all said it was fine, and it wasn’t hurting them at all. That astonishes me.

I did not really adjust to the sound over time, either. Instead, I had to take periodic breaks when I felt myself getting too overwhelmed. Being in the ballroom put my body into fight or flight. My breathing was shallow, I was sweaty, and I felt panicked.

So instead of getting used to the sound, it just became more intense over time. This lines up with my own experience going to prom. The speakers were so loud that I had to wear two forms of ear protection, and even then, I only lasted 15 minutes in the ballroom at first.

In this study, a constant noise was played at the participants for around 4 minutes. Over time, the neurotypical participants habituated and their nervous systems calmed down. But for the autistic people, many of their nervous systems just got more and more activated.

You can see how habituated a person is by measuring how activated their autonomic nervous system is. When someone is not habituated, their autonomic nervous system is highly activated. When someone is habituated, their autonomic nervous system is calm and not reactive.

Habituation is the decrease in response over time to a repeated stimulus. Basically, it means that you “get used to” something to the point that you no longer notice it/it no longer bothers you or catches your interest. The process works very differently in autistic people.

The study linked above (from 2020) found that autistic people’s levels of autonomic arousal and brain activity did not decrease over time when exposed to a constant noise. In the charts below you can see that many autistic people’s level of arousal actually increased.

My college (UVM) just had a prom for sophomores who missed our high school prom due to the pandemic, and I went. I wore earplugs and ear defenders and it was still overwhelmingly loud. Why? Autistic people may not habituate to sound in a typical way. https://t.co/TqtitsiFVD

As they get older, autistic (but not nonautistic) children are less likely to be fooled by fake "shame/guilt-provoking tasks" https://t.co/AVwYrJAsM6 note: that's my suggested interpretation, the authors' is different ("This is alarming...")

‘Remember kids, being different is bad, even when the reason you’re different is that you’re doing something good.’ - NT autism researchers, probably But I disagree. Diversity makes ecosystems stronger, and autistic people increase humanity’s resilience just by existing.

If autistic people are the ones doing it, whatever “it” is will wind up being pathologized somehow. This is true even if the behavior actually lines up *better* with dominant cultural values and principles. Why? I think NT researchers have a bit of a superiority complex.

One of the main problems with autism research is this unspoken maxim: ‘Autism is inherently pathological and bad; therefore any behavior that is unique to autistic people must be pathological and bad.’ Clearly, it doesn’t even matter what the behavior is.

The study’s authors have a different way of looking at it: “ASD individuals exhibit an excessive valuation of negative consequences when judging the moral appropriateness or permissibility of actions.” Apparently, our integrity and morality is “excessive.”