This quote speaks volumes about the misunderstandings and misconceptions surrounding neurodivergent behaviors. ✨✨✨ "If a person's behavior doesn't make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. It's that simple." - Devon Price. ✨✨✨ Too often, neurotypicals view our actions 😮 through their own lens of “normal behavior,” missing the broader context that gives meaning to our actions. Look deeper: 🔎Perhaps it's pain or other illness, the sensory environment, or what the people around us are doing 😫. Perhaps you are misunderstanding our spoken and unspoken social communication (the double empathy problem) - you think we are angry or rude or not paying attention when our intention is anything but, or our facial expressions 😐 don't match neurotypical expectations for displaying a particular emotion, or we may need to move our bodies or stim to self-regulate.
✴✴✴ Without understanding the full picture, judgments are made, often unfairly, resulting in 🚫🚫🚫Behavior Intervention Plans, discipline, punishment, stigmatization, exclusion, and isolation. Consider…
➡️Did you consider any other possibilities other than “maladaptive behavior?”
➡️Does your therapy or behavior “intervention plan” focus on increasing the comfort of neurotypicals?
➡️How exactly does the plan benefit the neurodivergent person?
➡️What might be the resulting mental health outcomes?
➡️What potential trauma might it induce for that person?
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