Adam and I began by cutting up old diagnostic reports. Adam wrote about how the “language of autism” writes him off as a non-thinking person. As a mother, I have been writing about our negative experiences through the process of having to obtain a diagnosis in order for services or to be identified for school. The process of diagnosis is lead by psychologist charged with finding disability under the assumption that this will be helped or remediated. Testing occurs over two days using tests to diagnose for autism and other tests that analyze typical motor planning and verbal skills; these are to analyze intelligence. There are no tests designed for specifically autistics (do we need them?) and for they way they communicate and move because tests are designed to measure against neurotypicality. The early process of identification for us has been useless but for others, we understand it can be liberating to know that their “difference” can be attributed to something. We believe this need for identification has more to do with acceptance than obtaining help as the system of help for autistic children is intended to eradicate autism. This leaves a lifetime impression of having to keep up, of feeling inadequate as Adam writes always of wanting to talk like others to be accepted. We examine the assumptions that presume the talking-walking, humanist subject, the neurotypcial, dominates as the preferred body and how thinking about our own movements can be transformative and to shift the way we view the human, and how we become in the world. Instead of asking how we should produce art, movement, or “proper” ways of socialization, we ask how we already do so as the conditions that support neurodiversity.
