Since it can be so hard to find decent resources on Autism in adults, especially adult women, I thought I’d create a master list of helpful links.
*If you know of any resources that you think should be added to this list please email me at brittany@notolux.ca or contact me via my website www.notolux.ca.
Table of Contents
My Posts on Autism
General Articles
Autism and Trauma
Unmasking Autism
Women with Autism
Employment and Autism
Education and Autism
Mental Health and Autism
Autistic Children
Articles & Blogs
My Posts on Autism
General Articles
New research explains autistic’s exceptional visual abilities: [Autistic’s] concentrate more brain resources in the areas associated with visual detection and identification, and conversely, have less activity in the areas used to plan and control thoughts and actions.
Heightened sensory perceptions: Our rods and cones are different. 85% of us see colours with greater intensity than neurotypicals, with red appearing nearly fluorescent; 10% saw red as neurotypical children do, and 5% saw muted colours.
Why 'Neurodiversity' and 'Neurodivergence' Shouldn't Be Used Interchangeably: "Humans, as a species, are neurodiverse because no two people’s minds and brains are the same. But if you mean that your brain [or] mind doesn’t function in a way that’s considered 'normal,' then... that means you’re 'neurodivergent,'" notes Cara Liebowitz, a multiply-disabled activist and writer.
Synaptic Growth, Synesthesia & Savant Abilities: In autistic individuals this synaptic pruning process happens to a far lesser degree, meaning a lot of these “redundant” connections remain intact.
Autism and Trauma
Autistic Adults May Be Erroneously Perceived as Deceptive and Lacking Credibility
Autism and PTSD Are Vulnerably Linked: The research demonstrates that even mild stressors, which typically wouldn’t affect others, can trigger PTSD in those with autism, exacerbating core autistic traits like repetitive behavior.
Autism combined with high IQ increases risk of suicidal thoughts
At the intersection of autism and trauma: Clinicians suspect that the condition increases the risk for certain kinds of trauma, such as bullying and other forms of abuse. Yet few studies have investigated that possibility or the psychological aftermath of such trauma, including PTSD.
America’s Most Popular Autism Therapy May Not Work — and May Seriously Harm Patients’ Mental Health: (*Mentions Autism Speaks) As neurodivergent adults have moved into the ranks of academic and independent researchers, some have begun compiling evidence that ABA subjects are more likely than other autists to suffer from PTSD and other serious mental health problems.
A hopefully helpful excerpt from Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, pages 72–75:
“When it comes to mental illness and disability, diagnostic categories are really flawed things. A disorder is a cluster of symptoms and traits that tend to go together, but don’t always, and the way those clusters get organized tends to change over time….Often a person exists somewhere on a spectrum between multiples disorders, or have a unique combination of traits from multiple conditions.”
“People with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, can look very similar to Autistic people. PTSD sufferers tend to be afraid of large crowds, are easily rattled by loud noises, and become more reserved when placed in hard-to-read situations. PTSD-fueled hypervigilance can look a lot like masking: you’re constantly scanning your environment for threats, and modulating how you present yourself, so you can stay safe. To complicate matters, many Autistic people experience trauma at a young age, and have PTSD symptoms from that.”
“For all these reasons, it’s not always possible (or helpful) to try to untangle which of a person’s traits are Autistic and which are caused by the trauma of being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world. Daan is a forty-year-old man living in the Netherlands, and in addition to being Autistic, he was abused by both his parents. He tells me his diagnosis of complex PTSD effectively masked his neurodivergence for many, many years.”
Unmasking Autism
Women with Autism
Employment and Autism
Education and Autism
STEM Resource List for Neurodivergent Kids (*From BitIRA)
Mental Health and Autism
Mental Health, Drugwatch and ADHD, Drugwatch (*from Drugwatch)
Autistic Children
A Guide to Dental Care for Children with Autism (*From Byte. I think this article is very informative and could be helpful for children and adults)
Autistic brains create more information at rest, study show: New research finds that the brains of autistic children generate more information at rest — a 42 percent increase on average. The study offers a scientific explanation for the most typical characteristic of autism — withdrawal into one’s own inner world.
Books
TedTalks & Videos
“People tend to diagnose autism with really specific check-box descriptions, but in reality, it’s a whole variation as to what we’re like.”
“Everyone in this room has a unique voice — something about you that is different from others. And I want you to take a moment to think about what that difference is.”
“I’m going to start my talk today by telling all of you that my biggest fear is that I will never be loved for who I am in a romantic relationship.”
“But it wasn’t me who had failed the test. It was the test that had failed me. And there are women in their thirties, forties, fifties, and even older, who are only just getting diagnosed now.”
“Why? Why is a question that parents ask me all the time. Why did my child develop autism? As a pediatrician, as a geneticist, as a researcher, we try and address that question.”
Warning: sexual assault
“I transferred to a new treatment center that understood my aversions, my trauma, and my social anxiety, and they knew how to treat it, and I got the help I finally needed. And after 18 months of hard work, I went on to do incredible things.”
“The main problem with living autistic in today’s society is that the world just isn’t built for us. There’s so many ways that we can get overwhelmed."
“Normality overlooks the beauty that differences give us, and the fact that we are different doesn’t mean that one of us is wrong. It just means that there’s a different kind of right.”
“I want to talk to you now about different ways of thinking. You have to get away from verbal language. I think in pictures. I don’t think in language. Now, the thing about the autistic mind is it attention to details.”
Warnings: discusses suicide, mental health issues, uses some outdated autism terms
“I think it’s very important to think about the subjective experiences, what are the lived experiences of people, listen to people with autism.”
“Women are better at masking because society expects more from us and it doesn’t make as many allowances for us.”
“Disability is something that’s being done to me. I’m actively being ‘dis-abled’ by the society around me.”
Instead of trying to control the behaviors of individuals with autism to make them indistinguishable from the general public, Amy Laurent, PhD, OTR/L suggests a positive shift in focus that supports the development of their emotional skills.
People & Organizations
People
Tiktok is a great place to start finding like-minded people. Use the hashtag #actuallyautistic to get started or check out who I’m following because I follow a lot of autistic tiktokers and creators.
Organizations
Podcasts
Shows
Episodes
Formal Diagnosis Resources
Autism Research
Introducing critical autism studies (CAS) from Anglophone research: Research acknowledging the precarious situations and oppressions lived by disabled people who are living with sensory, physical and cognitive impairments.
Monotropism, Autism Explained: In nonscientific terms, we understand this phenomenon as the localized, intense attention we give to one, or a few, specific interests at a time. When this occurs, all other information in our environment does not reach our minds.
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