Autism – The Basics

Autism is diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but we reject the notion of being ‘disordered’ and will be using the terms autism or autistic only. Autism is complex, not least because it encompasses a wide range of differences, making each person’s experience unique. Autistic people experience the world in a different way to non-autistic peers and this may be most pronounced in the areas of communication, social interaction and sensory processing. You can make an autistic person’s life much easier by learning as much as you can about being autistic and adapting the environment around that person to be more comfortable.

As the term “spectrum” signifies, there is a wide variation in challenges and strengths for autistic people, which in turn means a wide variety in support needs.

All autistic people will benefit if they are surrounded and supported by people who understand them and make accommodations or adjustments, just as that autistic person will have been doing all their life to navigate a world most people view through a purely neurotypical lens.

Statistics on health and social inequalities are not pretty. But they are also not accurate because there are very many adults who have either not yet been recognised as autistic or are not on any records so do not appear in statistics. There are many autistic accountants, teachers, engineers, doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, researchers, statisticians, artists, IT consultants, games developers out there, not appearing in statistics and perhaps not confident to be ‘out’ to their colleagues. We hope increased understanding and representation will change that.

Currently society doesn’t really know what constitutes a happy life for autistic people. All the measures for happiness and quality of life are based on a neurotypical idea of what that looks like and it may not be applicable. Explore this website and read some of the many books we recommend by neurodivergent authors to find out more about what that may look like so that you can spread the word and help cultivate a more inclusive and supportive society. Ideally we’d like to see all autistic young people recognised before they transition to secondary school, but this is still not the norm for those brought up as girls. And naturally, if you’re autistic you have been from the moment you were born, and will be all your life, so the world has many more autistic adults in it than children!