I didn’t have anybody to teach me as a child. I wasn’t diagnosed until my 20s.
Queue passes are to make places accessible to people who otherwise would not be able to cope with going, to try to level the playing field a little bit so that disabled people can access the same things as others. Sorry that you find this so objectionable.
As autistic people we have to learn to tolerate environments that aren’t designed for us and are - rightly and understandably - designed for the preferences and needs of the majority. This is essential to be able to function in life. Some of us have had to teach it to ourselves as best we can. Some children now get better support, but much of it is still hard won and begrudged.
What is astonishing is the complete lack of empathy still from many NT people. The seeming complete incomprehension that many autistic people - even children - are making a superhuman effort all day every day to adjust to the environments designed to suit NT people, to huge detriment to themselves, and yet when the slightest adjustment in return is requested this is seen as a huge imposition and “unfair” even when it won’t affect the NT people at all, when the autistic person is already hugely disadvantaged simply by existing in the world designed for NT people.
The way autistic children are treated in schools and the claims that SEND provision is “unfair” are a great example of this.
I often think that teachers/ parents/ others who behave like this to autistic/ ADHD people should be made to sit in a room all day with people shouting and screaming through loudspeakers all day long, everyone speaking to each other at all being required to use one. There should also be noises like nails scratching down blackboards, buzzing and whirring sounds played throughout the day through speakers.
There should also be various spotlights positioned around the room at awkward angles to shine directly into their eyes no matter where they look. These lights must flicker constantly like strobe lighting.
The temperature should be turned down to -5 but they shouldn’t be allowed to wear a coat, and they should be forced to wear socks filled with sand inside their shoes and clothes lined with sandpaper.
The walls should be covered in psychedelic patterns in neon colours to make them feel sick, and various disgusting smells should be pumped into the room all day like strong odours of B.O. and farts.
Everyone should be required to wear a mask covering their whole face at all times as well so that nobody can read each other’s facial expressions to help them understand what they are trying to communicate over the background noise.
Should they find this unpleasant at any point and ask to have a break from the environment for a few minutes they should be told to stop being so entitled and thinking they are special, quit whinging and just get on with it. Surely, after all, they can just turn down the sensitivity levels of their eyes and ears and sense of smell and nerve endings on demand to suit the environment? Who do they think they are, being so demanding and precious?
Then, at the end of the day they can feed back how they think it went, and it should be announced at that point that they’ll be doing the same for the next four days running. Oh, and next week, and the week after that, and….
What’s funniest is the endless pretence that somehow autistic people are expecting to be given advantages when all that is being asked is the slightest bit of consideration, common decency, and a few minor adjustments that rarely affect anybody else to any significant degree in order to make daily life bearable while they continue to try to comply with the preferences and needs of neurotypical people.
I’m so sick of hearing these discriminatory comments. Nobody has said anybody can “stop being autistic”. Life for autistic people could be made much less hellish, with little impact on anybody else, however, with just a little bit of compassion and adjustment and less ignorance and prejudice.
NT people might also want to look up the many autistic people in history in science, mathematics, philosophy, the arts, music etc without whom they’d probably still be living in a cave trying to figure out how to light a fire to keep the wolves away at night-time. There is a reason why these genes are prevalent and have not died out: they are beneficial to human society. It’s not much to expect some basic decency in return.