1. Where We Are

Think of it: a disability is usually defined in terms of what is missing…but autism…is as much about what is abundant as what is missing, an over-expression of the very traits that make our species unique.

Paul Collins (2004)

Autism is a part of a life. The people who experience it have a life, and autism is a part of it. A lot of people with autism find that it gives them heightened intuition; they feel it can inform their life beautifully, as much as it can be a disruption. Autists don’t necessarily want to become normal, but they do want to engage with the world better.

Autists are bright people stuck in a body that doesn’t respond for them. They are shut off by their body from the rest of the world. This can be frightening and difficult, and it does not always bring out their best. Autism can be mild or it can be full-blown. Autists can have an openness to the world that sometimes shuts down, or they can be always shut down. For the autist it feels as if they are shut out.

People with autism are less able than other people to interact with the world. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5 (American Psychological Association 2013) describes them as typically having deficits in two key areas:

•Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts:

•Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

•Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction

•Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships.

•Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities:

•Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech

•Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal nonverbal behaviour

•Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus

•Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment.

Some people who study autism like to look in the brain for answers. But they haven’t found any. Other people like to look to genetics for the reasons why people have it. But they haven’t found any. Autism has everyone stumped.