July 24, 2021

“Many people, again lay and professional alike, believe that all people with autism are by definition incapable of communicating, that they do not experience emotions, and that they cannot care about other people or the world around them. My experience, both personally and with others like me, is that in many cases quite the opposite is true. A significant number of autistic people who care deeply about all manner of things, and are profoundly emotional about them, share these capabilities in the privacy of their journals, diaries, and poetry. they do not show them to the world, which is too intense and often too destructive or, worse, dismissive. They do not show them to professionals, whose beliefs about the abilities of autistic people and the power they wield over their clients sometimes make them too frightening to challenge. They do not even show them to one another. And so a vast resource of knowledge about the diversity and beauty of autism rests on countless pages, like layers of archaeology, covered with the dust of fear.”

-Dr. Dawn Prince-Hughes, Songs of the Gorilla Nation

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