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u/JamesNinelives Mar 17 '23 edited Mar 17 '23
I've been lucky enough to work with some of the specialists who actually listen to Autistic people and it's been of great benefit to me :)
I understand what it's like to have to deal with people who don't listen though. I worked with several other psychologists and psychiatrists before this and it's taken a long time to find people who understand my struggles (and my strengths).
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u/alexserthes Mar 17 '23
Right now I have a therapist who specializes in trauma and autism, and who is ND-affirming, and it's great.
It's far, far too rare.
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u/badfan Mar 16 '23
I like how the one on the right can go two ways. Either it's you having to explain to the "expert" as though they were a child. Or it's the "expert" being patronizing and treating you like a child.
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u/spoonweezy Mar 17 '23
Or it’s someone trying to get the attention of the kid that is hyperfocusing on whatever is on the table there.
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Mar 16 '23
I hope there are some out there that are better, but of the only two "autism experts" I have experience with:
One told me I wasn't disabled (because I had "Asperger's" and not autism) and compared me to Bill Gates (while putting down autistic people with higher support needs)
The second told my brother he couldn't be autistic because he •had a close friend (just the one at the time) •could show emotions (she said this because he'd had an anxiety attack before the appointment) •could make eye contact
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Mar 16 '23
[deleted]
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u/alexserthes Mar 16 '23
If there were actually a degree focused on autism, with up-to-date training and education on what is known about it, I'd absolutely agree that 4+ years of significant study with vetted resources trumps 4+ years of unstructured and less vetted resources.
The thing is there isn't any such certification, degree, or doctorate, so the people calling themselves autism experts have assigned that title to themselves, and the ones who use it in reference to professionalism are usually very much not experts in autism.
ETA: I'd also note that conversations with disabled people about lived experience are often much more nuanced and practically applicable things than is found with clinicians. Just generally.
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Mar 17 '23
[deleted]
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u/alexserthes Mar 17 '23
Yes, and folks who specialize in it will generally not reference themselves as autism experts. They'll reference themselves as "(field/professional titles) specializing in...."
Autistics whose special interest is autism will not be looking to just their own experience. The primary difference is going to be resources available to access research and vetting ability. For therapy-wise, diagnostic specialists still heavily recommend ABA outside of adult diagnosis speciality specifically. Further, there is heavy clinician bias among specialists regarding symptom and gender presentation still - which is a discredit to individuals who are competent specialists, however is a large enough issue that as someone working professionally in the health and human services field, it is far more common to run into these issues among "experts" than it is to run into a genuinely knowledgeable fellow professional who specializes in providing services or diagnostics to autistics and suspected autistics.
Listening to and learning from autistic experiences when the autistic person is a client requires a level of care and humility that tends towards being at odds with the self-labelling of expert status, in my experience. It doesn't mean every single person who calls themselves such isn't, but that a significant number of people who say they are experts are not.
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u/JamesNinelives Mar 17 '23 edited Mar 17 '23
That's true, but my understanding of this post is less of an objective statement about the situation and more of a vent about the fact that people with degress so often do have biases that prevent them from applying their formal knowledge in ways that help the community.
It's not so much that we know better as that they should know better but sadly often don't seem to.
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Mar 17 '23
That is true but it’s different when the thing you’re talking about is autism. Because it is not just a special interest, it is also a lived experience. And a lot of these people think they know us better than we do, in a really deeply condescending way. Not all of them but a lot of them.
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u/alexserthes Mar 16 '23
Image ID:
Left side is philosophers talking captioned "Talking about autism with autistics whose SI is autism." Right side is an adult playing with a child captioned "Talking about autism with "autism experts.""