In 2014 , the Autistic Self Advocacy Network released Welcome to the Autistic Community . This handbook welcomes newly-diagnosed autistic people and autistic people who have just learned of their diagnosis to the Autistic community . It addresses the most common questions that people may have about their diagnosis , emphasizes that they are not alone , and celebrates their new identity . The handbook is written entirely in cognitively-accessible plain language . The main content of Welcome to the Autistic Community is divided into ten sections :
• What is Autism ?
• What Does It Mean ?
• Am I OK ?
• More Alike Than Different
• Positives
• Am I The Only One ?
• Where Are the Other People Like Me ?
• What Are My Rights ?
• Resources
• What Does My Future Look Like ?
Many autism introductory resources talk about autism like it ’ s a disease rather than a developmental disability . They aren ’ t written with autistic people in mind ; often they ’ re geared towards parents or teachers . It ’ s incredibly alienating if your first introduction to being autistic is something written about you without bothering to talk directly to you . Even if you do manage to find good resources , they ’ re often written in jargon-filled , cognitively inaccessible language . Resources for the autistic community should be written in language that all of us can understand , including those of us with intellectual and other disabilities . That ’ s why our handbook is written in accessible plain language , addressed directly to the autistic reader .
To date , Welcome to the Autistic Community has been downloaded over 362,000 times . Last year , we adapted the handbook into a short , animated video , and I had the incredible opportunity to be the voice-over narrator . This was an important moment for me . In order to understand why , let me tell you a bit about my world before the handbook was published .
I didn ’ t start identifying as autistic until I was 20 . Before then , I ’ d had autistic friends tell me yeah , you ’ re definitely one of us , but I was so scared of being perceived as a liar or an attention-seeking hypochondriac . I spent a straight year reading whatever scattered information I could find about autism written by autistic people . It wasn ’ t easy .
There were no resources like Welcome to the Autistic Community in 2012 . There weren ’ t any introductory-level guides that weren ’ t targeted at non-autistic parents . There wasn ’ t an FAQ for autistic people who weren ’ t diagnosed in childhood . Research is my strong suit , and even so , my search was hardly turning up anything accessible .
This is why Welcome to the Autistic Community is so important . It ’ s a concise , plain language starting point . Before I was diagnosed , I spent over a year pouring over articles and blog posts written by autistic people , trying to answer the very questions posed by the sections in the handbook : What does it mean to be autistic ? Am I disabled ? Where are the other people like me ? Autism isn ’ t as straightforward as some other diagnoses . All autistic people have traits in common , but the way those traits manifest can be completely different from person to person , not to mention that sometimes those traits , taken as a whole , all seem like they have nothing to do with each other . After all , why would
ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses 15