Things NTs Say About Autistics That Drive Me Up The Wall!

An Introduction
By Samantha Pierce

If you’re the parent of someone on the autism spectrum you have probably been the beneficiary of some unsolicited advice from strangers, friends, and family. A few months back I asked my Facebook friends to share things that neurotypical people (NTs) said to them about autistics that they found irritating. I was intending to make a list with a few snarky comments added in to pass around to friends and family.

After more than forty responses that translated into a four page document I realized that I had hit a nerve with my question. There was a lot of raw emotion, expressed mostly by parents of autistic individuals, stirred up by the comments that many of us endure from friends, family, and strangers.

My idea of making a simple list went out the window and I instead decided to do a series of articles discussing the kinds of comments my friends reported having to deal with. So far I’ve sorted the many comments I received into five categories: discipline to address the many comments that either implied or outright stated that parents of autistic children were failing to properly discipline their children; disbelief to address the comments from people who seemed to have difficulty accepting that autism is real and the individuals they were dealing with really were autistic; diagnosis to discuss those comments about the nature of autism and what autistics can and can not do; disdain to discuss comments that talked down to and dehumanized autistics; disinformation to address those comments that actively pushed unsupported and disproven information about autism.

Hopefully this series will shed a little light on autism and encourage people to think twice about what the choose to say to and about autistics.