Incidentally, if you are new to the fine world of autistic people, you may need to know there are rival groups with different ways of thinking about autism. I shall give you a quick, informal summary:/

Group 1: People like me who are affirming of autistic people as fantastic, wonderful human beings who often have a tough time in society, and who may have additional health factors such as epilepsy or hypermobility etc that can make life very difficult/

Group 2: Those who believe autistic people are a disease of some kind that needs removing from the future, and truly believe they are doing fantastic things in seeking a 'cure', a 'treatment for its core symptoms of social deficit and too much concentration'. (Charming....)/

Group 3: People who make a living out of presenting autistic people as rude, lazy, defiant and clueless about how to behave. Keen on punishment (often subtle but cruel) designed to Normalise Our Behaviour At All Costs. And disastrous costs they are, too/

Group 4: People who make a living out of presenting *themselves* as the Tragic Parent. "I am an 'Autism Mom' - watch this podcast which you can pay to access...also buy this t-shirt - contact me for prices). I will tell you about my Tragic Child, for money! Look at Meeeee!"

Group 5: The Hero. "My child was broken, but now they're cured, and for a small sum of say £20,000, I can cure yours too. Look at the child smiling and happy now! What, you want to give me an award? Oh how kind!"

Group 6: The malicious rumour-spreader. They just outright hate autistic people and will do anything in their power to spread nastiness. If one autistic person out of the 2 million in the UK has done something criminal, they'll be first to parade it as 'proof' of evil. Sigh/

Meantime, and thankfully, there are also hundreds of thousands of allies who are just really great people.
Who realise that we're fellow human beings.
Who share our lives with respect and responsibility, working alongside us and enjoying life with us.
My thanks to them all.

So, when you read an article or a post about autistic people, see if you can spot which group the person/ team is trying to belong to.

The millions of autistic people who share this lovely world with you would like our lives back.