Sofie Andersen’s Speech about Neurodiversity presented at our assembly

Hi everyone. I hope you’re doing okay today in this chaotic world. I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal and Wangal people, who have a rich connection to Country, and a culture of storytelling that celebrates diversity. Today I’m going to be talking about neurodiversity and my experience as an autistic ADHDer in our Western culture, but I would also like to acknowledge the different lens on neurodiversity that First Nations peoples in Australia have maintained for millennia; one of inclusion that doesn’t require labels in order to support and accept neurodivergent people. 

I would also like to recognise the significant advantage I have in this world as a white cis person living in a wealthy area of Australia at this incredible school. There are so many things that I am thankful for in my life and many barriers that I do not face, and I think that intersectionality is really important to acknowledge when talking about all forms of diversity and discrimination. I can only speak to my unique neurodivergent experience, so please keep listening to all perspectives. 

Next week is the Fort’s inaugural Neurodiversity Week. The Diversity Committee has organised loads of fun events including hands-on fidget and zine-making activities in the SSO Room, optional student-led seminars at lunchtimes, and our Sensory Activism day on Wednesday, when you are all invited to wear sunglasses as a way of showing solidarity with everyone who uses sensory accommodations. We will also be collecting money for Yellow Ladybugs, an organisation that advocates for autism awareness in girls, women, and gender diverse people – who are systemically underdiagnosed and face unique stigma. Keep an eye out for activities next week to get involved in making our school environment feel safe and inclusive for everyone. 

Today I’d like to kick off our celebrations of neurodiversity, and talk about my experience as a high-achieving ADHD and autistic girl who doesn’t fit all the culturally ingrained stereotypes which are all that many people know about neurodiversity. 

But first, let me slow down. Until a year and a half or so ago I knew basically nothing about neurodiversity. And maybe you don’t either. 

Neurodiversity is an umbrella term that describes differences in the way people’s brains are wired, without implying that there’s one ‘correct’ way for your brain to work. These differences include, among others, ADHD, autism, OCD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia and Tourette’s syndrome. Today I’ll just be talking about conditions that I experience, but there’s always so much more to educate yourself about on neurodiversity. It’s seriously interesting, not to mention important for you to know about in order for you to be a safe and understanding person for your neurodivergent friends to be around – coz, trust me, they are there! You can be part of a shift in culture towards awareness and acceptance of neurodiversity by learning from neurodivergent people. Too often others speak for us. 

So, in this vein of self-activism, autism is a neurodevelopmental difference (experienced by an estimated 1 in 100 people) that comprises: differences in social interaction and communication; sensory processing differences; and medically-labelled “restrictive and repetitive behaviours”. I could write an entire essay about my (vegan) beef with the ambiguous and unhelpfully deficit-focused nature of that definition – and I actually have – but I’m sure you’ll all hate me if I talk that long. I prefer thinking of autism as an antenna that means we constantly process massive amounts of sensory, social, and cognitive information – which leads to a different way of interacting with the world. Allistic people (people who aren’t autistic) will often rightly notice these differences, but stigma means that autistic people are often teased or bullied for them. 

Dictionary definitions of conditions as multidimensional and diverse as autism are inevitably pretty vague, so I’m going to unpack some of the categories of an autistic experience. 

You might notice that I’m wearing earplugs right now or you might have seen me around the school wearing noise cancelling headphones or sunglasses (or both at once). That’s because I’m hypERsensitive (really sensitive) to sound and light, so lots of this sensory input is really painful and distressing and can cause me to become completely overwhelmed. I’m also hypOsensitive (undersensitive) to physical pressure and interoception. Quick background: there are WAY more than five senses – neurologists generally agree on at least 9, but some have put the number as high as 53. And autistic people’s senses are often geared wildly up or down from the norm – so we can find input in some senses extremely overwhelming, and be almost oblivious to others. So because of my hyposensitivity to physical pressure, I often feel like I’m floating, so a weighted blanket is really soothing. I’m also hyposensitive to interoception, so I find it hard to tell whether I’m hungry or not, or if I need to take a break when I’m studying or doing homework. Other autistic people have completely different sensory profiles, and they can really profoundly impact how we interact with the world. 

Although I totally reject the use of the word ‘restricted’, with its connotations of inadequacy and deficiency, I do want to address this category of the autistic experience that really needs to be formally renamed. Routines and schedules provide a needed sense of surety for many autistic people, and it can be really distressing when this plan is altered; I’ve had panic attacks because of last-minute changes to a plan. However, the prevalence of ADHD amongst the autistic community (with current scientific literature showing that between 50 and 70 % of autistic people also have ADHD) complicates things. Schedules can also feel oppressive – I so often will make a beautiful plan that I’d love to follow, and then proceed to completely ignore it. It’s a tricky balance! 

Another manifestation of repetition in autistic people is what’s known as ‘stimming’ – short for self-stimulatory behaviour – which literally everyone does, just not to the same extent. Clicking a pen at the back of the class? Or bouncing your leg in assembly? That’s stimming. Autistic people do this as a way to self-regulate; our nervous systems are often out of balance, and these sensory inputs can be centering. It’s different to Tourettes in that we can control it, but that’s really unpleasant to do, and besides, stimming is a good thing! We do it when we’re really happy about something, or to self-regulate when things are overwhelming. You don’t need to worry about it unless we’re hurting ourselves or others. Some examples of stims I do include: hand flapping when Nick and Charlie finally kiss on Heartstopper, humming a melody to myself, twirling my hair in conversation, rocking in my chair when people are too loud, and tapping my shoes together at home to help me focus. There are so many more, and I kinda want to list them all because (if you hadn’t already gotten that idea) I’m really interested in neurodiversity and the autistic experience. It’s called a special interest, and most autistic people have them. It’s the thing that makes you light up and that you could talk about or do for hours. I literally spent 4 hours straight writing this speech during prelims while I was supposed to be studying for an exam the next day. I’m also rather fond of the German language – and I don’t let something as small as their lack of comprehension stop me from talking to my family, friends, and dog in German. If you’ve seen my year 12 jacket you might know that I’m also a bit of a choir nerd – although senior school and the incorrigible exhaustibility of my energy supply have made me downsize, I was at one point in 4 choirs whilst taking singing lessons, I sang in a professional opera at the Opera House last year, and I take every solo opportunity I can get. And I can hyperfocus for ages on these things without getting bored. 

Greta Thunberg is autistic and an inspirationally focused and informed advocate for climate justice. Francis Bourgeois is autistic and adores trains, publishing train-spotting videos that seriously cannot fail to make you smile. Grace Tame is autistic and such a powerful activist for survivors of sexual assault. We need autistic people, and so-called ‘restricted’ behaviours aren’t a bad thing.

Another manifestation of autism is social differences. These can manifest in many ways, both internally and externally. Some autistic people are non-speaking or otherwise communicate very differently to the allistic norm. Others do something known as masking, which is difficult to explain and different for each person, but involves adapting your behaviours to ‘fit in’ with others and social norms, including suppressing stims, ignoring sensory distress, making eye contact (which for some autistic people is painful), and hyper-analysing people’s reactions in order to respond appropriately. Masking can cause extreme anxiety, and, in undiagnosed people, it can progress to the extent that people feel like they don’t know who they are because they have morphed their identity so much just to be ‘normal.’ But it’s not supposed to be like that! Autistic joy is a thing too! Unmasking can be a long, difficult, and vulnerable process of embracing who you truly are, but it’s worth it. When you feel confident in and are aware of yourself and your needs, when you have the support you need, when you have the time to process what makes you you, things can be awesome! The much, much better alternative to masking is accommodation and acceptance, which is something that allistic (non-autistic) people can impact. And therapy. That’s also helpful.

Diagnosis is so key to being able to accommodate and understand our autistic selves in a largely inaccessible society, but, as I mentioned, stigma and lack of awareness mean that autism is chronically underdiagnosed, especially in high-achievers and girls. 

So if you feel like you connect with some of the things I’ve talked about, maybe look into autism more. Or even if you don’t resonate with what I’ve talked about and don’t think you’re autistic, educate yourself to be an ally! If we all increase our awareness of neurodiversity, we create an environment in which it is safe to explore your identity and be yourself.

While you’re learning, be aware that, sadly, it can be quite confronting to look up information about autism online, because we live in a deficit-focused paradigm that pathologises autistic traits, so please look for content made by autistic people. The hashtag ‘ActuallyAutistic’ is great for this. 

As an incredibly multifaceted condition, autism is inseparable from my identity, which is why I – and many other people in the autistic community – refer to myself as an autistic person (using identity-first language) rather than a person with autism (using person-first language), but all autistic people will have their own preferences. It’s really important in dialogue about neurodiversity to understand that no two autistic people are the same – we all experience the world completely differently, so when I talk about my autistic experience, I’m talking about MY autistic experience, not anyone else’s. 

So now that we’ve covered what autism is, I thought I’d dispel some myths and clarify what it isn’t.

The formal name for autism is “Autism Spectrum Disorder,” and there’s more than one misconception that comes along with this ‘spectrum’ description. 

Firstly, no we are not all ‘somewhere on the spectrum.’ It’s the autistic spectrum, so, unless you’re autistic, you’re not on the spectrum. 

Secondly, the spectrum is not linear. It’s more like a colour wheel: you don’t rate colours on how red they are. You can’t plot them linearly from ‘most red’ to ‘least red.’ They’re just different colours. Similarly, autistic people don’t exist on a linear scale from ‘high’ to ‘low’ functioning. This construct has no neuroscientific basis, and was actually originated by psychologist Hans Asperger for the purposes of Nazi eugenics. It reduces autistic people to their perceived value in our capitalist society, and misrepresents ‘functioning’ as a static quality, when it changes on a daily basis and over our lifetime. Yet functioning labels remain widely accepted and used today, even by medical professionals. Please don’t use them – talk about the traits that you’re actually trying to describe, just like you would for any other person.

I would hope that everyone in this room is across this next myth, but – just to be clear – no, vaccines don’t cause autism. I’ve been autistic since I was born, because autism is a genetic condition, and I had no vaccines before I was born, because you can’t do that… so the logic there doesn’t even make sense. 

The next misconception is much more mainstream than simple conspiracy: there are entire organisations and therapies established with the goal of curing autism. You can’t fix autism, and that should never be a goal. I’m not broken – I’m just different, and that’s okay. That’s how I’m supposed to be. Great minds don’t think alike – how would we get anywhere stuck in one way of thinking? People will have different views on this than me, but I think that focusing on ‘fixing’ behaviours labelled problematic in neurodivergent people makes no sense – I think that the challenges autistics face would be fixed if we stopped focusing on the behaviour, and instead looked at the underlying need; if we decided to cure society of its inaccessibility rather than smothering autistic people who dare to be who they are.

I know that, however much I want to, I can’t defeat ableism in one speech, but maybe I can be one of many voices adding to the polyphony of your mind. Thank you for giving me your time and listening to me talk at you. I really really really appreciate it, as my neurotype is such a big part of my identity, so I feel like you all now understand me a bit better. If you want to engage more with neurodiversity, please get involved next week, or feel free to come find and talk to me. My friends – and the length of this speech – will vouch for the fact that I am more than enthusiastic to talk about this. 

I hope that you feel your feet on the earth today. Thank you.