Fear is the enemy of intimacy. Education can be the antidote to that fear. It is our hope that through the materials and activities set out in our book, Walk Awhile in My Autism, we can help create a more open and accepting environment for all children, including those with autism. If we truly want children with autism to be understood and accepted, we have an obligation to teach their peers how to have successful relationships with them. This requires providing classmates accurate information about how individuals with autism perceive and experience the world. The benefits of this type of teaching far surpass facilitating the individual relationship a “typical” child may have with one who has autism. Since these peers will be the future teachers, bosses, neighbors, parents and family members of individuals with autism, the compassion, understanding and accommodation skills they learn will have lifelong positive effects.

Regardless of the age and level of challenge experienced by an individual with autism or the structure of service delivery, there will undoubtedly be a need to teach the people surrounding that person about who he or she is. These people can use the teachings to be appropriately responsive to the educational, emotional, social, communication, and spiritual needs presented by someone with autism.

Our goal is to provide a menu of teachings to help others learn about the unique ways in which individuals with autism experience this world. We have attempted to provide teachings that match a variety of learning styles and are appropriate for all ages of students. While these sensitivity strategies have been primarily developed for school settings, they have applicability in a variety of non-school settings as well, including vocational sites, adult living facilities, day care settings, neighborhood and community settings, and family groups. Additionally, while our focus has been specifically on students with autism, there is obviously application across all areas of challenge and difference.

Activity #1: Visualizing what is feels like to have Autism
Guided visualizations can be a powerful way to help some individuals gain some understanding about an experience for themselves without actually having the actual experience itself. There is nothing we can do to truly create the experience of autism for someone who doesn’t have autism. However, in this activity the teacher/facilitator reads or speaks a visualization that takes the participants on a trip through their imagination that is designed to bring them closer to our understanding of autism.

The teacher/facilitator begins by asking the participants to get into a position that is comfortable for them. This may be sitting in chairs for some or on the floor for others. Tell them that you will be lowering the lights, then asking them to engage their imagination to join you on a special kind of trip. Let them know that some people find that closing their eyes makes the experience seem even more real, and invite them to do that if they feel comfortable. Instruct them to take a couple of deep cleansing breaths to prepare for the trip, then pause for 15-30 seconds of silence. Begin reading or speaking in an even and calm tone, taking the participants through the visualization.

After slowly and gently bringing them back to the present moment and present space, facilitate a discussion beginning with what their direct experience of the “trip” was like. Have several people share. Relate their visualization experience to the characteristics seen in people with autism. Reference their classmate with autism or reports by other individuals with autism.

Setting it up:

Explain to the participants that we all have different ways in which we experience the world, and that we are going to help them use their imagination to take a trip to a place where their experiences of the world are different than the ones they have here on Planet Earth.

You will need:

Room enough for people to be comfortable and relaxed.

Welcome to Planet Autism
Okay, get ready, because if you’re willing, I’m going to take you on a very interesting trip. I’m going to take you to another planet, but you don’t need a spaceship. You’re going to be traveling using the magnificent energy of your mind and your imagination. I don’t know exactly when we will be leaving yet, so settle in for a bit with some comfortable thoughts, and I’ll let you know as soon as I receive the go ahead from the captain.

[Pause here for 15-30 seconds.]
That’s it! I’ve received the go-ahead. I am transporting you immediately to a new planet we have just discovered. You will be here for … oh, I don’t know how long. Until the captain says to bring you back. While you are here, your main assignment is to try to connect with the beings that live here and to “fit in” as best you can.

At first you have a hard time figuring out what it is you are hearing and what it is you are seeing. Things are clear for a bit, then they suddenly get fuzzy. Then, without any warning, they are clear again. Yet from the beginning, you sense something familiar about the lifeforms taking shape before your eyes. These aliens appear very similar to you.

For a moment you study them closely, you watch the way they move, the way they stand, the way they sit. You try to understand the sounds that are coming from … are those … their faces? And then you study your own body to see how hard or easy it’s going to be to connect with them and to “fit in.” You watch how your body moves. Your hands dance in front of your face and shimmer like the wings of birds, splitting the light into shooting and swirling designs. You move about with total freedom, sometimes smoothly, and sometimes crashing into the things around you.

You look around more closely for a moment, at all the things surrounding you. In addition to the aliens, you notice lots and lots of things that don’t move around so much. Some of the things are round, some have corners, some are flat, some are soft, and some are hard. What are all these things? You line them all up in a row. There. These things are easier to deal with than the aliens. They only move when you want them to, and you can control how they move. Oh, look at how you can make them all spin!

But now the aliens have come back, and you remember … you’re supposed to try to connect and “fit in.” They come close to you. You hear those noises they make again. They seem to be asking you something. You try to make sense of the noises, but it’s really hard. But they keep making them, and after a while, you start to understand what some of the noises mean. You get it. They want you to do things like them. They want you to make the same kinds of noises. You try. You try really hard, and sometimes you get it right. Oh, they get so excited when that happens. But sometimes you try just as hard and you just can’t get your body to work the way you want. They are not so happy then. Sometimes the only way to get a break is to look away from them. [Pause.]

They keep trying and you keep trying to connect. You see that you are so much like each other in so many ways. And you want them to understand that you want to do what they ask, that you want to be able to talk with them. You just can’t always make your body do what you want or find the words you want to speak. You really want them to understand that you’re not stupid or slow; in fact, you are expending tremendous amounts of energy trying to break through the wall of noise and chaos that seems to fill the very air that you are breathing on this planet you are visiting.

To fulfill your mission of “fitting in,” you keep doing what they are doing and saying what they are saying. But they don’t seem as happy with you for doing that as they did before. After a while they grow tired of you doing what they do, and they even get angry.

When this happens, you just want to find a space in which to be alone. You start moving your hands before your eyes again, then you start lining up all the objects at your side. Sometimes you do the spinning thing again, too. And this time, you start spinning your body as well. You do all of these things over, and over, and over for a while.

Then you remember … fit in. And besides, you kind of miss the aliens when they are not around. So you seek them out and try again. They like that, and they try to help. They try to help by touching you. But the touch does not always feel helpful; in fact, sometimes it feels like an electric shock surging through your entire body. Then an interesting thing happens. They learn to touch you differently. There … that’s better. They slow down. There … that’s easier. They’re working hard to be with you … that feels better. You start to find each other’s rhythm. You shift, they shift. It’s starting to work. Sometimes you manage to “fit in” a bit better, and when you don’t … you know they still like you anyway … and they won’t leave you alone.

This is what I have come to call my filter of autism. Bring it back with you now as you return to this room. Keep it handy as we begin to talk about how we can help people with autism feel more at home.

As Christian Morgenstern wrote: “Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.”

Major points to make:

• Feelings of disorientation can be common for some people with autism.
• Being able to “connect” and “fit in” can be challenging for many people with autism.
• A sensory system which functions differently can make the world a very unpredictable, anxiety-producing, frustrating place in which to exist.
• A sensory system which functions differently can make communication difficult.
• Not being able to communicate as easily or in the same way as you or I is not the same as not wanting to communicate.
• Challenging behavior, or behavior that is different from how we behave is usually happening for a reason, and often it is because things are scary or confusing.
• Connecting with one another, feeling accepted and knowing there are others to support you when you need it is important for everyone.

Buy the book "Walk Awhile in My Autism"