I’ll definitely be using this as a reference, but I wish it was broader in scope. Perhaps that may be partly an issue of what is available.
I agree with an earlier commenter that it is frustrating that most of the focus on autism resources seem to be catering to a presumed neurotypical audience - parents of children or young adults, who work very hard and advocate and very often have their child’s needs by proxy recognised.
Whereas autistic adults without a family carer as proxy, especially who have an inability to self-advocate, so often are under-served, even by those who may be paid to support them. Almost forgotten by so many services and awareness campaigns. Their needs are often not the same as children, even with ID.
I disagree with the earlier commenter that autism isn’t a disability - seriously, speak for yourself, not for the vast breadth of those falling under the medical label. Autism, which is extremely common, a few per hundred, is truly a spectrum condition with multiple “causes” and manifestations. Disability isn’t a dirty word, and it doesn’t make a person “less” to need support because they struggle by themselves with living well in their environment, or have medical conditions strongly correlated with autism.
No one should generalise from one autistic person to another in terms of any one trait, so autistic people who are unABLE to do the life skills stuff YOU can, shouldn’t mean YOU get assumed to be very disabled. Similarly, the existence of autistic people who are mostly very capABLE in life should not make those who are not get less credibility or services. Overall, this is on the wider world/NTs to sort out and it shouldn’t be a competition/scarcity battle. Btw I am an autistic with (govt funded) carers, and am carer to my son. We need the support we get, but still struggling a lot.
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