Every time there’s a special day, week, or month for Autism, all sorts of misinformation runs rampant. People post about “awareness” and use the dreaded puzzle piece symbols. There’s tons of conversations and events going on, yet the most important voices, actual Autistic people, get overlooked. We don’t need awareness, we need to listen to and accept Autistic voices.
@nighfunctioningautism is an awesome Instagram account to follow for parenting advice from someone actually on the spectrum. She recently put out an excellent list of Autism terms that need to be changed.
Thechroniccouple also provides helpful resources about Autism acceptance and preferred terminology on their podcast and Instagram. Plus they’re fun people and we love their colorful graphics.
You should also check out @Autism_sketches for colorful infographics and compelling biographical art.
Another great place to listen to Autistic voices is Tiktok. There are so many Autistic adults providing valuable resources on the platform. One of the most popular is @princessaspien who is an Autistic creator, advocate, and musician.
We also recommend following the #actuallyautistic hashtag and checking out these other tiktok accounts:
A delightful neurodivergent artist that we love is currently going through the Autism diagnosis process. She chronicles her daily life with ADHD (and undiagnosed Autism) on youtube and instagram as MollysADHDMAyhem. Her art is especially helpful to kids and young adults on the spectrum who have yet to receive a diagnosis.
We’ll be posting stories and interviews with Autistic friends in the coming months, but it felt really important to share some resources now. No matter what diagnosis you’re dealing with, remember to go to the source. Always ask actual spoonies what a condition is like. The medical community is great, but connecting with other people can be valuable too.
Beautiful post! Thank you for writing this post!
I so glad there is a National Awareness day. It’s great information and I’m glad that people are getting to learn more information.
Great post! As someone who has worked with many individuals with autism, I sincerely appreciate this post. You are so correct when you say that it’s important to go to the source. There’s a lot of misinformation out there and everyone is unique regardless of whether a person has a diagnosis or not.
A very important article! I recently explored the topic of sensory overload in my own blog to increase awareness about autism this month, but even then, I didn’t include as many autistic voices as I would like to in the future
This is by far the best blog post I’ve read on autism awareness and I am finding out there is so much I don’t know. Thank you for such an informational post!
So glad this post helped you. Definitely follow some of the tiktok accounts to get more info every week.
Awesome, thank you for the resources! I love hearing from neurodivergent folks on Tik Tok, I find that I relate a lot even though I’m not diagnosed with anything. It’s very refreshing
Do you have any tiktok accounts to recommend?
This is great information. I believe persons should definitely get more information on this before voicing out about it… and a great place to start is from actual autistic persons. Thanks for sharing!
You dropped the mic by saying, “We don’t need awareness, we need to listen to and accept Autistic voices.” I also like that you said to “go to the source.” Thank you for this list!