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101 " Do not allow a child or an adult to become defined by a DSM label. "
― Temple Grandin , The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum
102 " The body and the brain aren’t two different things, controlled by two completely different sets of genes. Many of the same chemicals that work in your heart and organs also work in your brain, and many genes do one thing in your body and another thing in your brain. "
― Temple Grandin , Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
103 " So it’s not that autistics don’t respond to eye contact, it’s that their response is the opposite of neurotypicals’. "
104 " For me and other people on the autism spectrum, sensory experiences that have little or no effect on neurotypical people can be severe life stressors for us. Loud noises hurt my ears like a dentist’s drill hitting a nerve. For "
― Temple Grandin , The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's
105 " What I was actually doing was observing.....I feel like my local focus frees me from the global bias that gets in the way of top-down thinkers "
― Temple Grandin
106 " The number of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder almost certainly went up dramatically for another reason, one that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should: a typographical error. Shocking but true. In the DSM-IV, the description of pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified that was supposed to appear in print was “a severe and pervasive impairment in social interaction and in verbal or nonverbal communication skills” (emphasis added). What actually appeared, however, was “a severe and pervasive impairment of reciprocal social interaction or verbal and nonverbal communication skills” (emphasis added). Instead of needing to meet both criteria to merit the diagnosis of PDD-NOS, a patient needed to meet either. "
107 " It’s not really helpful to diagnose a teenager with autism, because we already know it.” The younger the subject, the earlier the possibility of intervention. The earlier the intervention, the greater the potential effect on the trajectory of an autistic person’s life. "
108 " that you cannot turn a non-social animal into a social one. Your focus should be teaching people with autism/AS to adapt to the social world around them, while still retaining the essence of who they are, including their autism/AS. Learning social survival skills is important, but I cannot be something I am not. Social "
109 " A much more meaningful perspective is to teach this population the academic and interpersonal skills they need to be functional in the world and use their talents to the best of their ability. "
110 " Thomas McKean, an autistic champion of self-advocacy "
111 " author Donna Williams, who is autistic, "
112 " The Asperger’s child at the gifted meeting is doing well in school, but the Asperger’s child at an autism meeting may be in a poor special ed program, bored, and getting into trouble because adults in his life hold lower expectations of his abilities. Unfortunately, in some cases, people are so hung up on the labels attached to students that they teach to these low expectations and aren’t even curious to learn if the child is actually more capable. "
113 " Parents and teachers should look at the child, not the child’s label, and remember that the same genes that produce his Asperger’s may have given the child the capacity to become one of the truly great minds of his generation. "
114 " How do I teach my child not to run into the street?” or “He knows not to run into the street at our house, but at Grandma’s he runs into the street.” In the first situation, the child actually has no concept of danger at all; in "
115 " When lots of people are talking around me, at the same time, such as in a pub, I get overwhelmed and start to zone out, and can’t make sense of any of it.” “I just shut down and can’t feel or react, so I usually just stand/sit absolutely still and stare very hard at something. Sometimes my mind is racing and that’s very difficult to pull back.” “I just need to sit quietly and refocus.” “I often just become catatonic, with a stoic expression.” “Your eyes try to go to every movement they perceive. That is part of what destroys your eye contact and makes you seem very inattentive. "
116 " Mindset 1 embraces the idea that every child is more than autism. This mindset recognizes that while diagnostic labels serve purposes, they can also lead to errors in perception. There are predictable ways that humans try to make sense of each other, especially when behaviors are outside the norm. Parents, educators, and clinicians working with autistic children are not immune from these false narratives. Recognizing and fighting against them, as well as battling unconscious images we may have gleaned from media, leads to more accurate understanding of each child and to more successful interventions. "
― Temple Grandin , Navigating Autism: 9 Mindsets For Helping Kids on the Spectrum