jessicaleza's review
5.0
“Therapies that value compliance and normalcy or sameness amongst peers are not respectful of your [client’s] dignity, individuality, and autonomy” (Lei Wiley-Mydske, “Change the World, Not Your Child,” p. 57).
“Understand what acceptance really means. It does not mean no supports or accommodations. It does not mean no help or therapies. Acceptance means you accept your [client’s] Autistic neurology as valid. When we value Autistic and disabled lives, we understand that love and acceptance are critical. This idea is not controversial [in regards to] allistic children. When it comes to Autistic lives, however, we get frightening messages that who we are is broken and that we need to be fixed. Do not get caught up in those messages of fear.” (Lei Wiley-Mydske, “Change the World, Not Your Child”)
“Autism has a coherence. It’s certainly a different way of experiencing the world, but the problem and the disorder happens because non-autistic people aren’t listening to actual autistics.”
- Karen Lean, “A Different Way of Being” (p. 69)
"...if you deny your [client’s] desires and pain around her sensory world she may learn that her body and boundaries are not worth respecting. As a child I learned that my body and my boundaries were wrong. I learned that my discomfort couldn’t possibly be real because my discomfort was uncommon. … I learned to put up with extreme bodily discomfort. Relent to pain often enough and it doesn’t become less painful, it becomes a lesson that the pain doesn’t matter. … I strongly connect disrespecting my sensory boundaries with a vulnerability to unwanted sexual contact. … Sexual safety means nothing if we ignore our most basic needs for sensory safety.”
- Karen Lean, “A Different Way of Being” (p. 71-73)
“I may not be capable of toughening up, …. I will not develop an immunity to sensory or emotional pain simply by prolonged exposure, even if that exposure is called therapy.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 29)
“I need to have the power to say no. … Autonomy is dignity. ... make sure I know my rights.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 31-32)
"...presumption of competence is not a completed act. It is an exercise, a constant work in progress. In order to practice this principle, you need to keep your heart open to being wrong.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 32)
“... a hundred degrees on the wall from top universities may make you an expert in a field of a disorder, but they will never make you an expert on being autistic.”
- Anonymous, “Tell Me I’m Autistic” (p. 171)
“Compliance therapies that do not care why a child is not complying are teaching your child that she does not own her own body and that she is not allowed to make her own decisions. What makes behavioral momentum particularly insidious is that it models the way young boys attempt to encourage young girls to engage in sexual activity before they are ready. … You are training her to say yes again and again, no matter where the boy moves his hand and no matter how she really feels about his hand being there.”
- Maxfield Sparrow, "Keep Her Safe; Let Her Fly Free" (p. 87-88)
"One of the best things about tapping into the resources that Autistic adults provide is that, unlike the experts, they don’t insist there is one way to learn and progress.”
- Beth Ryan, "Afterword" (p. 191)
"unless our voices count, the bad events that happened to me will happen again.” It’s important to remember that when the neurodiversity community challenges our authority or expertise as therapists, it is not meant to hurt our profession but rather to help us to serve our clients more effectively and ethically."
Amy Sequenzia, "I am an Autistic Woman" (p. 163)
“I wish I could have grown up in an environment where I wasn’t constantly treated like I was broken,” she writes. “I felt like I wasn’t OK unless I learned to act like everyone else. I realized later on that my mom sent me to therapists partly thinking that they would instruct me in doing whatever my mom said.”
- Katie Leven, "What I Wish You Knew" (p. 52)
“Understand what acceptance really means. It does not mean no supports or accommodations. It does not mean no help or therapies. Acceptance means you accept your [client’s] Autistic neurology as valid. When we value Autistic and disabled lives, we understand that love and acceptance are critical. This idea is not controversial [in regards to] allistic children. When it comes to Autistic lives, however, we get frightening messages that who we are is broken and that we need to be fixed. Do not get caught up in those messages of fear.” (Lei Wiley-Mydske, “Change the World, Not Your Child”)
“Autism has a coherence. It’s certainly a different way of experiencing the world, but the problem and the disorder happens because non-autistic people aren’t listening to actual autistics.”
- Karen Lean, “A Different Way of Being” (p. 69)
"...if you deny your [client’s] desires and pain around her sensory world she may learn that her body and boundaries are not worth respecting. As a child I learned that my body and my boundaries were wrong. I learned that my discomfort couldn’t possibly be real because my discomfort was uncommon. … I learned to put up with extreme bodily discomfort. Relent to pain often enough and it doesn’t become less painful, it becomes a lesson that the pain doesn’t matter. … I strongly connect disrespecting my sensory boundaries with a vulnerability to unwanted sexual contact. … Sexual safety means nothing if we ignore our most basic needs for sensory safety.”
- Karen Lean, “A Different Way of Being” (p. 71-73)
“I may not be capable of toughening up, …. I will not develop an immunity to sensory or emotional pain simply by prolonged exposure, even if that exposure is called therapy.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 29)
“I need to have the power to say no. … Autonomy is dignity. ... make sure I know my rights.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 31-32)
"...presumption of competence is not a completed act. It is an exercise, a constant work in progress. In order to practice this principle, you need to keep your heart open to being wrong.”
- Bridget Allen, "Acknowledge Vulnerability, Presume Competence" (p. 32)
“... a hundred degrees on the wall from top universities may make you an expert in a field of a disorder, but they will never make you an expert on being autistic.”
- Anonymous, “Tell Me I’m Autistic” (p. 171)
“Compliance therapies that do not care why a child is not complying are teaching your child that she does not own her own body and that she is not allowed to make her own decisions. What makes behavioral momentum particularly insidious is that it models the way young boys attempt to encourage young girls to engage in sexual activity before they are ready. … You are training her to say yes again and again, no matter where the boy moves his hand and no matter how she really feels about his hand being there.”
- Maxfield Sparrow, "Keep Her Safe; Let Her Fly Free" (p. 87-88)
"One of the best things about tapping into the resources that Autistic adults provide is that, unlike the experts, they don’t insist there is one way to learn and progress.”
- Beth Ryan, "Afterword" (p. 191)
"unless our voices count, the bad events that happened to me will happen again.” It’s important to remember that when the neurodiversity community challenges our authority or expertise as therapists, it is not meant to hurt our profession but rather to help us to serve our clients more effectively and ethically."
Amy Sequenzia, "I am an Autistic Woman" (p. 163)
“I wish I could have grown up in an environment where I wasn’t constantly treated like I was broken,” she writes. “I felt like I wasn’t OK unless I learned to act like everyone else. I realized later on that my mom sent me to therapists partly thinking that they would instruct me in doing whatever my mom said.”
- Katie Leven, "What I Wish You Knew" (p. 52)
More...