I could sit here and write a huge load of spiel, but why waste my time regurgitating something that has been written and rewritten (usually badly) by a million different people. So instead, I’ll let you have an excellent description, written by Nick Walker.
“A Neurotypical brain runs on Windows, an Autistic brain runs on iOS, neither is broken, they just work differently”
We have different operating systems in our brain, you and I. We’re both Humans but, neurologically we work differently, which in turn makes us think and act differently to you. Neither of us is wrong, but because the way your brain works is predominant, you’ve built up a whole society that allows you to function, but hinders our function.
So what can you do to help us function? Check out the links at the bottom of this article.
Meanwhile, here’s Nick:
“Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant. The complex set of interrelated characteristics that distinguish autistic neurology from non-autistic neurology is not yet fully understood, but current evidence indicates that the central distinction is that autistic brains are characterised by particularly high levels of synaptic connectivity and responsiveness. This tends to make the autistic individual’s subjective experience more intense and chaotic than that of non-autistic individuals: on both the sensorimotor and cognitive levels, the autistic mind tends to register more information, and the impact of each bit of information tends to be both stronger and less predictable.
Autism is a developmental phenomenon, meaning that it begins in utero and has a pervasive influence on development, on multiple levels, throughout the lifespan. Autism produces distinctive, atypical ways of thinking, moving, interaction, and sensory and cognitive processing. One analogy that has often been made is that autistic individuals have a different neurological “operating system” than non-autistic individuals.
According to current estimates, somewhere between one percent and two percent of the world’s population is autistic. While the number of individuals diagnosed as autistic has increased continually over the past few decades, evidence suggests that this increase in diagnosis is the result of increased public and professional awareness, rather than an actual increase in the prevalence of autism.
Despite underlying neurological commonalities, autistic individuals are vastly different from one another. Some autistic individuals exhibit exceptional cognitive talents. However, in the context of a society designed around the sensory, cognitive, developmental, and social needs of non-autistic individuals, autistic individuals are almost always disabled to some degree – sometimes quite obviously, and sometimes more subtly.
The realm of social interaction is one context in which autistic individuals tend to consistently be disabled. An autistic child’s sensory experience of the world is more intense and chaotic than that of a non-autistic child, and the ongoing task of navigating and integrating that experience thus occupies more of the autistic child’s attention and energy. This means the autistic child has less attention and energy available to focus on the subtleties of social interaction. Difficulty meeting the social expectations of non-autistics often results in social rejection, which further compounds social difficulties and impedes social development. For this reason, autism has been frequently misconstrued as being essentially a set of “social and communication deficits,” by those who are unaware that the social challenges faced by autistic individuals are just by-products of the intense and chaotic nature of autistic sensory and cognitive experience.
Autism is still widely regarded as a “disorder,” but this view has been challenged in recent years by proponents of the neurodiversity model, which holds that autism and other neurocognitive variants are simply part of the natural spectrum of human biodiversity, like variations in ethnicity or sexual orientation (which have also been pathologised in the past). Ultimately, to describe autism as a disorder represents a value judgement rather than a scientific fact.”
Nick Walker
Check out my other blogs on ‘Why Autism Advocacy‘, ‘Why Neurodiversity needs self-Advocacy‘ and ‘How to be a good Ally’
If you’ve found this article useful you can support my work by donating any amount from $3 (about the same as a coffee – mine’s a caramel latte please!).
I know not everyone wants, or needs to buy one of my training courses, but I often find people will read one of my free articles and want to say ‘thank you’ (and this is really appreciated as they’re a lot of work to write!) Buying me a virtual coffee is a really easy way to say thanks. It also supports me to keep being able to create new, free content and keep my older, free content up-to-date. It also allows me to keep my website ad-free!
My Autism FAQs page is a good place to start if you’re new to my work and want to explore more. Thanks for your support, Kieran.
JOIN KIERAN’S MAILING LIST (for infrequent, but useful, updates!)
And, as a thank you for joining, you’ll get a 10% off code emailed to you which you can use on Kieran’s on-demand autism training and ebooks (including his flagship training The Inside of Autism).
Training and ebooks from Kieran
I have a full range of autism training and ebooks on my website; starting from just a few dollars and all priced to be affordable.
Got more questions about Autism?
If reading this article has given you more questions then my Autism FAQs is a great place to point you in the right direct to get answers (and most of where I direct you is to free-to-access resources!).
