Starting your Autistic discovery journey – a guide
Find on this page key videos, topics, and links to resources for when you start your Autistic discovery journey, starting with the basics of “what is Autistic experience?”, under the first heading “Starting your Autistic discovery journey“, further down the page.
Once you’ve started (or finished!) you are welcome to head over to the back catalogue (and growing!) of Aucademy videos for other and more in-depth discussions about experiences connected to being Autistic, including:
- ADHD/interest-based nervous system/polyennic/polyennism
- PDA/anxiety-driven need for autonomy
- Situational mutism/”selective” mutism
- The intersectionality of being neurodivergent and queer/LGBTQIA+
- Substance use and addiction
- Mental health topics, and what therapy works
- Navigating therapies, the UK mental health system; and avoiding “interventions” like ABA/behavioural approaches that harm
- Hyper-empathy
- Exposure anxiety
- Importance of animals for Autistic people
- EHCP support in the UK
- Autistics and employment
- Neurodivergent relationships
- Importance of gaming
- Why Autistic people have “all the things” – e.g., co-occurs
- And so much more
Checklists
Unofficial Autistic checklist
Written by Samantha Craft, this scored checklist version is based on Samantha’s original blog found here. Below you can download the scored version created by Dr Chloe Farahar. This checklist, whilst unofficial, is more appropriate and useful for those with masked Autistic experience, and those who do not feel they fit the male stereotype of autism depicted in the official checklists.
Unofficial autism checklist here
“Official” checklists
- The Aspie Quiz (136 items, and provides a circular spectrum of your answers, and a percentage of how neurodivergent and how neurotypical you might be, as well as stating the likelihood that you are Autistic. Note: uses the term “Aspie” instead of Autistic, and implies you can be both neurodivergent AND neurotypical, which you cannot).
- And/or the Autism Spectrum Quotient (50 items, providing a score at the end, and the likelihood of being Autistic).
Please note that both the official tests are biased toward the concept of “male autism”, and created by non-autistics, and so ask questions more about externally observable behaviour than internal states (the latter is more common for Autistics with a tendency toward an internal phenotype, which includes women, non-binary, trans persons, and men).
Remember that none of these checklists are a substitute for professional assessment, and they also do not determine whether you are Autistic or not – only your feelings and experiences can truly determine that you are Autistic.
Many of us are multiply neurodivergent, e.g., some people are also polyennic (have an interest-based nervous system/”ADHD”), so it might be useful to also do checklists for “ADHD”, with the same caveats as above about the medicalisation of polyennism:
Starting your Autistic discovery journey:
Also, see here a blog supplying you with: Resources supporting preference, but importantly wellbeing properties, of identity-first language: we are Autistic
Six common reactions during Autistic discovery – the journey.
Find a blog about the six common reactions during Autistic discovery here: https://aucademy.co.uk/2022/01/20/six-common-reactions-during-autistic-discovery/
Video discussion about the six common reactions during Autistic discovery below:
Starting to build knowledge of your profile so you can build self-advocacy skills:
We advocate for building self-advocacy skills, which includes:
- Learning your needs/personal neurodivergent profile;
- Knowledge of your rights;
- Conveying those needs; asserting your boundaries/expectations (confidently; telling people what your needs are/what your profile is – in your way, e.g., augmented and alternative communication methods)
In this way, you may also come to naturally take control of your Autistic mask (search this page and our YouTube for more on masking and what it really is).
1) Learning your needs/personal neurodivergent profile:
Please feel free to start building knowledge of your neurodivergent profile by delving into Aucademy’s resources, that’s why we created them! You can start here with the resources further down this page.
For those who like a simple book to explain the basics as a starting point, we can’t recommend enough Aucademy’s very own Ben Usher-Barrass and his platform, Autisticality.
Ben has taken many useful starting points Aucademy has covered and simplified them into easy to access info-graphics, and by demand, a book of key topics, found on Amazon and The Great British Bookshop.
2) Knowledge of rights
The next step in Autistic discovery and self-advocacy skill building is to have knowledge of your rights as an Autistic person (check the specific rights in your country, Aucademy are largely based in the UK).
We need to learn and be aware of our:
- Personal rights;
- Community rights;
- Our rights under the Equality Act in different settings (education/employment);
- Etc.
In the UK, you can get started by searching our A-Z resource page for the terms “legal”; “rights”; “adjustments”; “self-advocacy”.
3) Conveying your needs; asserting your boundaries/expectations
Once you have some idea of your needs and profile, as well as your rights, we can start to build boundary setting skills – and this takes practice!
We recommend when you’re ready to build boundary setting skills that you watch our video on how to do this:
Next are some of our key resources we think are good places to continue to build knowledge of yourself or an Autistic person you know…
Explaining Autistic experience: Theories about Autistic experience
Note that the video below – What is autism?: “autism” versus Autistic theories: Tanya Adkin & Aucademy’s Chloe 07.08.2021 – is 2 hours 45 minutes long, as we pick apart many of the existing theories. There are also shorter explainer videos in our blog Theories about Autistic experience.
Explaining Autistic experience to people:
Autistic discovery stories:
The politics of being Autistic in a non-autistic world:
Masking
Anxieties
Importance of sensory and stimming
Autistic mental health and Autistic burnout
Dedicated interests – not “special interests”
Autistic journeys; acceptance; and pride
You are welcome to head over to the back catalogue of Aucademy videos for other and more in-depth discussions about experiences connected to being Autistic, including:
- ADHD/interest-based nervous system/polyennic/polyennism
- PDA/anxiety-driven need for autonomy
- Situational mutism/”selective” mutism
- The intersectionality of being neurodivergent and queer/LGBTQIA+
- Substance use and addiction
- Mental health topics, and what therapy works
- Navigating therapies, the UK mental health system; and avoiding “interventions” like ABA/behavioural approaches that harm
- Hyper-empathy
- Exposure anxiety
- Importance of animals for Autistic people
- EHCP support in the UK
- Autistics and employment
- Neurodivergent relationships
- Importance of gaming
- Why Autistic people have “all the things” – e.g., co-occurs
- And so much more