Best 444 quotes in «autism quotes» category

Wearing a cloak is on Rose's list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand problems is ranked number one. 'But Dr. Rannigan says you must and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it's so full of holes.' I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction. 'Ventilated,' I said, 'that's the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated.

We don’t talk on the ride home. We don’t have to. I feel warm and giddy and like I have a secret that I want to keep all to myself. David Drucker, who is so many different people all at once: the guy who always sits alone, the guy who talked quantum physics even in my dad’s dental chair, the guy who held my hand in the snow. I kissed David Drucker, the guy I most like to talk to, and it was perfect.

We know that children with autism like order, that they are often very visual and that they can be quite literal. They deserve beautiful resources and symbols that make sense. If a picture does not explain visually, it is pointless and the child will stop looking to the pictures for information.

We live in truly unbelievable times. Autism is an epidemic in most western countries, western governments are nothing more than corrupt corporations, and corporations are routinely suppressing information regarding the toxicity of many common household items. The result is that many people are unnecessarily suffering from easily preventable developmental problems, sickness and cancer.

we match,” I say, and as soon as the words are out I already know that tomorrow will come and I will remember this moment and wince. We match?? And so, even through this drunken haze, I feel relief when he doesn’t laugh at me. Instead he squeezes me a little tighter, brings me a tiny bit closer so my edges are against his edges, and it’s all warm. Our bodies fit. I secretly sniff him, and get rewarded with his fresh lemony scent

What ABA has come to signal for autistics is an in-made rhetorical paradox from which escape is difficult: the laughable presumption that autistics can only communicate their feelings about ABA because they've endured ABA.

What I, as a person with special needs, longed for was to be taught what role, what purpose, I could have in society, and how to attain a level of independence.

What brought you here isn't your fault. We human beings have to live each day to its fullest and do our best in whatever environment we find ourselves in. There's no need to feel any shame just because your "fullest" and "best" look different from those of others.

What I wish to say is this: the value of a person shouldn’t be fixed solely by his or her skills and talents—or lack of them. It’s how you strive to live well that allows others to understand your awesomeness as a human being. This miraculous quality touches people. Via this “how,” people consider the sanctity and validity of everyone’s life, whether special needs are involved or not.

What is of essential importance is the impact that being autistic has on a person at any given time. This can range from horrifically negative right through to sublimely positive -- and sometimes both can be found in the same individual. So, if this dramatic difference can be seen at different times in the same person -- what 'grade' is that person? Clearly, this is where the whole notion of 'autism severity' crumbles.

What matters to people with disabilities is how they can lead rewarding lives twenty or thirty years from now.

When boundaries of behavior are set, it’s crucial to respect those boundaries, but it’s doubly crucial that the boundaries are appropriate and realistic for the person and context in the first place.

When there’s a gap between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying, it’s because the words coming out of my mouth are the only ones I can access at that time.

When leaves die do they go to heaven? ~Eric Sutton Starry Night Parade

When others focus on what your child cannot do, see it as an opportunity to focus on who God is and what he can do through you and your child. Sometimes inability is the vehicle for experiencing the blessing of God's powerful presence and provision.

When teaching children with autism we must be quick to adapt, follow our instinct and go off plan.

When the human heart starts tightening under pressure, God's heart releases love and grace. There is more than enough in God's economy.

When we look at nature, we receive a sort of permission to be alive in this world, and our entire bodies get recharged. However often we're ignored and pushed away by other people, nature will always give us a good big hug, here inside our hearts.

When something is "all in your mind," people tend to think that it's willful, that it's something you could control if only you tried harder or if you had been trained differently. I'm hoping that the newfound certainty that autism is in your brain and in your genes will affect public attitudes.

While increasing numbers function to expand out, increasing odds conjure an atmosphere of enclosure and confinement. Growing odds tell an allegorical story of a circle that is closing in zeroing in on the '1,' which is, inevitably your '1.' To borrow the tagline from a 2010 Autism Speaks PSA, 'autism is getting closer to home.

Whether the autistic subject is inscribed as 'nearly' developed or 'under' developed, developmental discourses always situate the autistic subject as partially developed and thus not fully human. [...] Developmentalist discourses frame the autistic subject in need of advocacy as a kind of development project, the autistic body becomes understood as 'develop-able.' The autistic is, in other words, framed as one who needs to be taught humanness.

When you keep eternity in mind, you can grow from the trials of you experience, knowing that your difficult circumstances will end with this earthly life.

While autism's embodied pathology is understood to be certain, its etiological origins remain unknown. Because of this unknown origin, all bodies are understood as potentially disordered. The mother, who was not so long ago under surveillance and scrutiny, must now adopt the paternalistic position of surveiller—she must watch her children and look for bodily manifestations or signs of disorder and seek biomedical intervention. This, of course, does not free the mother completely from being herself an object of scrutiny.

Why was it considered normal for a girl to live for fashion and makeup, but not car engines or bugs? And what about sports fanatics? My mom had a boyfriend who would flip out if he missed even a minute of a football game. Wouldn't that be what doctors considered autistic behavior?

Who knows what goes on in that girl’s head? Who knows what goes on in anybody’s head really?

Will you think about the kissing?” he asks, and I laugh again and mimic his shrug. If only he knew how much I think about the kissing. “Will you reconsider hand-holding?” he asks, instead of answering, I move my arm so it’s next to his, so we are lined up, seam to seam. He reaches out his pinky finger and links it around mine and a warm, delicious chill makes its way up my arm. We stay that way for a minute, in a pinky swear, which feels like the smallest of promises. And then I grab his whole hand and link his fingers in mine. A slightly bigger promise. Or maybe a demand: Please be part of my tribe. It’s pretty simple, really. For once, things are not complicated. Right now, right here, it’s just us, together, like this. Palm to palm. The most honest of gestures. One of the ways through. Maybe the best one.

You can’t always tell just by looking at people with autism, but we never really feel that our bodies are our own. They’re always acting up and going outside our control. Stuck inside them, we’re struggling to make them do what we tell them.

Would I ever have the courage to tell Wills the truth? That he wasn't just imagining the world was a more difficult place for him to understand than for some of his buddies - that it was, in fact, more difficult for him. That he'd been dealt a rotten hand in that regard, but only in that one regard. Because I wouldn't change one freckle, one misunderstood moment, one tiny piece of him for anything in the world. I would change myself. I would change the things other people said or thought out of ignorance or fear. I would change so many things, but I would absolutely never, in a million years, change him.

Yes. I’ve never met another Aspie girl before.… I mean, that I know of. I guess I probably have, just not another girl who knew she was on the spectrum.” I’m rambling, so I stop myself. “Does that make sense?” Josie giggles a little. “Yes, it makes perfect sense.” She stands up and steps closer to the table. “I actually just spoke about this on the Diversity in Media panel. When did you realize you’re on the spectrum?” “At first, I hated it. I felt like there was no hope, that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never fit in and everything would always be hard for me.

Within dominant discourses of autism advocacy, the autistic subjectivity—located simultaneously in the perpetual past (e.g. developmentally 'too slow' and always late) and the future (e.g. yet-to-be developed)—is discursively foreclosed from being (existing) in the privileged and agentive time of the 'now.' Via a kind of time-sensitive investment logic, autism is understood not as a being but as a happening—a costly body, a disruptive threat, a risky trend, and so on—a happening, moreover, that is happening fast.

Yes, raising a child with autism can be highly demanding, but please remember, just as you worry about your child, so your child worries about you.

As a parent with a child with autism, its been really tough to experience your child having autism.

You look beautiful even when you cry. I mean, not that you don’t look beautiful when you’re happy. Of course, you’re beautiful all the time. But out there in the snow, you were stunning.

Your child, too, will one day be an adult. For them to live life with the same degree of independence as neurotypical offspring might be difficult, but one day your child-rearing, child-minding days will come to an end. Parents grow older until they can no longer look after their adult children. The period in which we are together as parents and child is finite. So please, while the child still is a child, and while you’re still around to do so, support them well. Laugh together and share your stories. You won’t be revisiting these years. Value them.

A lot of the hallmark behaviors of autism - flat affect, stimming, not looking someone in the eye - could very easily be misinterpreted as signs of guilt.

And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.

As a scientist leading a funding agency for autism research, I think of autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder.

You know when 1 in 2 marriages ends in divorce, 1 in 42 boys have Autism, and safety complaints from the majority of whistle-blower's are not being upheld, that you are living in a seriously dysfunctional society.

A child gets vaccinated and soon after, autism symptoms emerge. The apparent cause-and-effect is understandable but erroneous - more a coincidence of the calendar and childhood developmental stages than anything else, as repeated and exhaustive studies have shown.

A major cause of the Roman Empire's decline, after six centuries of world dominance was its replacement of stone aqueducts by lead pipes for the transport and supply of drinking water. Roman engineers, the best in the world, turned their fellow citizens into cripples. Today our own "best and brightest," with the best of intentions, achieve the same end through childhood vaccination programmes yielding the modern scourges of hyperactivity, learning disabilities, autism, appetite disorders, and impulsive violence.

Asking the public health community to investigate the role of vaccines in the development of autism is like asking the tobacco industry to investigate the link between lung cancer and smoking.

Autism is a complicated illness, and children with a variety of treatments and non-treatments show improvement over time, which is all to the good.

Asperger's syndrome has probably been an important and valuable characteristic of our species throughout evolution.

As the diagnosis of autism is increasing the diagnosis of mental retardation is decreasing. And more and more on the other end, the high end, more children who are just a little bit off, who ordinarily you would not single out now are being described as perhaps Asperger’s syndrome or on the high end of the autism spectrum, so I don’t believe there is an epidemic.

Autism is a big continuum, going from someone who remains nonverbal, all the way up to geniuses on Silicon Valley. And some kids are visual thinkers like me. Other kids are pattern thinkers - your mathematicians, your programmers. And there are others, they are word thinkers. Uneven skills. You need to take the thing that they're good at and you need to work on developing it.

Autism is not a disability, it's a different ability.

Autism and seizures are the least known areas of illnesses.

Autism doesn't have to define a person. Artists with autism are like anyone else: They define themselves through hard work and individuality.

Autism is the filter through which all my other senses must pass, both input and output.

Autism's a very big spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, Einstein would probably be labeled autistic, Steve Jobs, half of Silicon Valley, you know, Van Gogh. And at the other end of the spectrum, you got much more severe handicaps where they never learn to speak.