Autistics Speaking Day

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of an event hosted on Facebook called Communication Shutdown. Facebook users were encouraged to go one day without logging into their accounts. The intent behind Communication Shutdown was to raise autism awareness by sharing in the experience of being unable to communicate. However, many of us in the autistic community found this event to be highly insulting for multiple reasons.

To start, few things have been more helpful to the autistic community than social media. The internet, including social websites like Facebook, has allowed us to find each other. We have used it to share coping strategies, learn how to navigate the neuronormal world, exchange ideas to be heard, and reassure each other that there are others like us in the world. Encouraging abstinence from this mechanism is a poor way to celebrate these accomplishments.

Probably the more obvious insult is the implication that autistic people don't communicate. It's true that we have difficulties with social interaction, but social interaction is different from communication. In fact, even completely nonverbal individuals are fully capable of communication. To the extent that our attempts fail, it's usually due to those attempts being ignored or not noticed.

To my knowledge, Communication Shutdown has not continued after its first year. Maybe it was due to the backlash from the autistic community. Perhaps it was only planned to be a one-day event from the beginning.

So, why should I bring this up now, four years later? Mostly, it's to talk about the response from the autistic community, which has lasted much longer. Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of Communication Shutdown, but it was also the fourth anniversary of Autistics Speaking Day.

Autistics Speaking Day is an annual event that takes place on November 1^st each year, the same date as the event that inspired it. It was created as a positive, educational alternative to Communication Shutdown. Not simply a push back, but something to fill the resulting void if that push back were successful.

Autistics Speaking Day was created to show that autistic people can and do communicate. What's more, we have a lot to say. The day was created for us to rise up, either in real life or behind our keyboards, and say “I'm autistic, and I will be heard!” Many of these messages are placed under the easy to find heading of “Autistics Speaking Day.”

Worthy of note is that much of what is said on Autistics Speaking Day is at odds with what we are told by the media. The reason is simple. What is said by autistic people is not filtered through experts trying to make sense of what they are seeing. It comes straight from the minds that they are speaking about.

I try to keep a writing schedule, mostly to make things easier for me. (I always post on the first and third Sundays of each month.) This time, it did cause me to be a day late for the event. However, all of the Autistic Speaking Day writing should still be present.

Now log on to your favorite search engine and search for “Autistic Speaking Day” to see what the autistic community has to say.