16/08/2020
Thank you Yellow Ladybugs, Autistic Girls & Women for sharing this wonderful and refreshing read!
‘...Advocate for autism acceptance - because the days of “awareness” are over.’
🙌✨
Stop Writing Masking Goals for Autistic School Girls! “Instead of tearing our autistic girls apart, shredding their self-esteem, focusing on the extinguishment of their autistic communication styles, and expecting them to change their entire manner of natural social interactions with others, why don’t we focus on:
✔️ Building self-esteem and promoting independence
✔️ Teaching the differences in social communication styles between autistic and non-autistic people, and validating both
✔️ Teaching self-advocacy skills, both in social situations and for access to supports and accommodations to which they are entitled by the IEP
✔️ Teaching our autistic students that they have control over their own bodies, including their eyes and their stims
✔️ Empowering our autistic girls to say “no”
✔️ Teaching an understanding and application of social, physical and emotional boundaries
✔️ Teaching perspective-taking – not just other’s perspectives, but their own, as well – and that all perspectives have validity, including their own
✔️ Teaching the physical sensations associated with anxiety and how to monitor and address (rather than suppress)
✔️ Identifying emotions and the associated vocabulary in order to develop self-awareness and other-awareness”
Read More:
https://therapistndc.org/masking-goals-autistic-middle-school-girls/