8:25pm May 10, 2014

“What’s the difference between a French speaker requesting an interpreter in a US court, and an autistic woman requesting that her aide interpret for her in a health care meeting? Both have their own method of communication, one with its own syntax, complex cultural and personal history. Both are very fluent and articulate in their own languages, and it’s not their fault that the people around them refuse to communicate with them, that the world is filled with many different modes of communication and that all are actually perfectly valid and reasonable. It’s the people around them who act put-upon when it comes to accommodating their desire to be understood and to advocate for themselves.”

Can’t Communicate, or Won’t Communicate the Way You Want To? | this ain’t livin’ (via brutereason)

“When we talk about how people can’t communicate or refuse to communicate, what are we really saying about them? And more importantly, what are we saying about ourselves? Who is refusing to communicate in a dynamic where one person is reaching out and trying to be as clear, simple, and obvious as possible, and another person is ignoring the communication and choosing instead to berate the communicator for not doing it right? Why do we not acknowledge that autistics who use speech therapy and other tools aren’t ‘learning to communicate’? They’re learning a second language.”

(via neuroqueer)

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