as small as a world and as large as alone, I was wondering if you could go in depth about...

4:46am June 1, 2014

Anonymous asked: I was wondering if you could go in depth about autistic people who need help doing cretin things like going to the bathroom,washing hair, remembering to eat, ect. You don't really hear about that much I and I would like to learn more about people with autism who have trouble with task that for most people are 'simple'. I often forget to eat/drink because i don't notice I'm hungry

neurowonderful:

Hi anon. This is a very big topic that is difficult for me to write about here, seeing as how every autistic person is different and will have different disabilities and difficulties.

There are lots of daily tasks that neurotypical and able bodied people tend to think of as simple or easy but that can pose real challenges for autistic, neuro-atypical, and disabled people. Many of these are what is known as “self care skills”. Personal hygiene (brushing ones teeth, showering/bathing, dressing, etc.) and basic homemaking (preparing food/meals, cleaning counters and sinks, sweeping/vacuuming, maintaining a tidy living environment, etc.) make up most of the “self care skills” people talk about.

There is a stigma surrounding those who, for whatever reason, need assistance or accommodation with self-care skills. This is partly because of a lack of understanding or empathy on the part of the able bodied/neurotypical majority. The able bodied/neurotypical thinking appears to be something like, “I learned to brush my teeth when I was four, and I have never had any trouble brushing my teeth, so idea of someone who does have trouble brushing their teeth is confusing/pitiable/unbelievable to me”.

I think another part of the stigma is that many of the self care skills people talk about were “supposed” to be learned and mastered in childhood. The able majority is all about the normative milestones, and there is a definite link in the average able/neurotypical person’s mind between the mastery of self care skills and adulthood. This means that disabled people who struggle with or who need accommodation to perform self care skills are often infantilized and presumed to be less competent overall, even in areas where they display no disabilities or challenges.

When it comes to autistic people specifically, there are many reasons that self care, like showering or remembering to eat or drink, might be difficult. In my mind the three biggest reasons are sensory processing issues (SPD), executive function issues (executive dysfunction), and comorbid conditions (other disorders or conditions that are also present).

Read More

Basically, it comes down to this:

Autistic people have trouble with perception.

Autistic people have trouble with cognition.

Autistic people have trouble with movement.

Autistic people have trouble in every possible way, with every possible connection between the three.

Therefore autistic people can have trouble doing just about anything involving any of those things. Which is just about everything.

I have trouble doing most things on my own. Like I can do them under some circumstances, but not reliably enough to take care of myself. So I have people come in every day to do those things for me.