Being Nonspeaking and Indigenous

One thing that I have struggled with most of my life is feeling like I don't belong to the communities I am a part of, because I cannot verbally speak my language(s). I am a Sámi and Inupiaq person who grew up with both my cultures being a big part of my life. In Sámi culture, one of the biggest things that connects you to your community is being able to speak the language. I can still understand both spoken Northern Sámi and Inupiaq fluently, but I cannot speak out loud, and I can only use Swedish and English on my AAC. My spelling is pretty bad in Northern Sámi. I can only write Inupiaq semi-well, and I can only write it in qaliujaaqpait (Latin script). This leaves me feeling like I'm not "Sámi enough" or "Inupiaq enough" to use those labels for myself. Many people in both my communities understand this, and have been very kind and understanding. There are many reasons that someone can't speak the language of their community, and disability is just one of them. Just my thoughts today.

more drak haired poc AAC users

credit: Drawn To AAC

nonverbal/nonspeaking full lip neutral sad and mad/angery emojis

For this autism awareness/acceptance month, let’s listen and support nonspeaking, nonverbal, and mute autistic people.

Let’s listen to them, interact with them, and support them. Let’s educate others on their terms that verbal people shouldn’t be using. Let’s uplift their voices. Let’s celebrate and center them. Let’s talk about those who can’t communicate via AAC and alternative communication. Let’s talk about the more marginalized nonspeaking/nonverbal/mute autistic people. The POC nonspeaking/nonverbal/mute people. The trans nonspeaking/nonverbal/mute people. The queer nonspeaking/nonverbal/mute people. The high support needs nonspeaking/nonverbal/mute people.

Let’s center them, talk about them, and celebrate their achievements, accomplishments, and just for being here and being them.

I want AAC with more inclusive, and specific voices.

Nonspeaking people need more flamboyant voices. Nonspeaking people need more POC voices. Nonspeaking people need more androgynous voices. Etc.

The best voice I could find for my device was Josh by Accapella, and dont get me wrong, I love it. But, a teenage sounding, androgynous, slightly flamboyant voice?? THAT is what I really really want. Josh was the best for me because it is relatively androgynous, and doesn't give cishet. But, a voice like the one I previously described would make me feel so euphoric, and comfortable with myself.

Can we pleeaaaase make inclusive voices for AAC and TTS in general?

Advocate for Autistic POC

Advocate for Autistic MENA

Advocate for Autistic Indigenous people

Advocate for Autistic Jewish people

Advocate for Autistic people in non Western countries

Advocate for Autistic LGB people

Advocate for Autistic trans+ people

Advocate for Autistic people with moderate support needs

Advocate for Autistic people with high support needs

Advocate for nonspeaking Autistic people

Advocate for semispeaking Autistic people

Advocate for multiply disabled Autistic people

Advocate for physically disabled Autistic people

Advocate for Autistic people whose autism isn't invisible

Advocate for Autistic people who can't communicate in a way that others understand (yet)

Advocate for Autistic people with (severe) mental illnesses

Advocate for Autistic systems

I personally see it this way

Can’t accept something not aware of.

Autism is a spectrum and I think so many people still not aware of what actually means. It means not all traits are noticeable, autism can appear in ways don’t expect or someone can have autism and you not tell unless person say. But also. Autism can be the “stereotypic” “classical” obvious telling traits. Can be looking at someone and just knowing they have autism. It can appear in the ways expect to appear.

But can also be they have obvious traits but mask to a degree and just can’t tell.

It can be them being a white boy. It can be them being a trans mixed girl. It can be an intersex poc. Autism doesn’t have a race. Or a gender.

Autism can be someone being nonverbal/ nonspeaking and needing a communication device to communicate. Or someone nonverbal/ nonspeaking who just not understand communication at all. Or someone minimally verbal or semiverbal or fully or hyper verbal.

It can be someone with an intellectual disability. Or Down syndrome or cerebral pasty. Or someone with no Combrid disabilities.

Autism can be being seen as a problem and disruptive or dangerous or disobedient. Or someone see as sweet and kind and naive and just “too good for this world”

Autism doesn’t have a look. Or a race. Or a gender. It can be anyone. It can appear in many ways. That needs to be understood better before anything

as a nonspeaking higher support needs visibly autistic/disabled POC i often feel like have to try twice as hard three times as hard to be even remotely acknowledged to similar level as white speaking LSN high masking autistic counterparts

“i finally felt seen when in all autistic space” all i felt is even more acutely aware that i’m different and a “freak.”

Really tired of 99% of canonically autistic represention being "cishet white adult genius with no problems whatsoever" and "nonspeaking white male toddler that's either played for the laughs or for pity". What about autistic schoolkids and teens. Autistic middle aged people and autistic seniors. Autistic women and nonbinary people. Autistic people with middle/high support needs that aren't shown to be pitied. Autistic AAC users. Autistic LGBT+ people. Autistic POC. Autistic physically disabled people. Autistic mentally ill people. Autistic people all over the moral spectrum. Autistic people that get angry and agressive easily. Autistic people that isolate themselves. Autistic people that help anyone and everyone. Autistic people that are seen as weird and eccentric, etc etc the list continues forever. We are humans. Representation should be humans too, not "geniuses" or "failures".

I am Cy!

Hi! I'm Cy and this is my Space. I will post my thoughts and my art here.

Likes/reblogs blog: @cybersp4ced

Flatland blog: @2d-dreams

Cyber "Cy" Monday Blackwell ♡

Pronouns are: it/its, she/her, cy/cyb, mie/mym, they&

I am in chronic pain. Also self-diagnose neurodivergent, occasional AAC user [intermittently speaking, NOT nonspeaking, NOT semispeaking!]

I am a minor, and I am hispanic/poc.

I have many names.

Cyber Monday, Siberia Mourning, Sign Here, Synapse Retrogenesis. All are Cy in the end.

Some things I like:

Flatland [book and film], speculative biology, writing fanfiction, Gravity Falls [tv show], funny shapes, Rainbow Friends, dragons, bugs, magic, Just Add Magic [tv show], Rain World

Some things you might wonder:

What is intermittently speaking?

It means that I can speak, but not always. I will lose speech for a variety of reasons.

In addition to this, I have what I call cognitive fluctuations. There is a wide variety of situations where my speech, thinking or language will be different. Here is a more in depth post to my speech ability: tba

Why are you self-dx if you have these difficulties? Shouldn't your parents know?

They do not care. I am very afraid of them and mask in their presence. The moment a doctor said I could be autistic, they stopped bringing me to therapy and stuff. Masking is extremely exhausting and not "full mask" and I can only try to mask with them- cannot do so at school and other places. They blame my chronic pain on my posture- and yes I agree- but make no attempts to help.

Hey Emma! I adore your writing and I was wondering if I could ask for your advice. When writing an autistic character, are there any characteristics / plots etc that you don't like seeing? Or anything stereotypical that is overused or often portrayed incorrectly in writing?

Hi! Thank you so much 😊 I’m always willing to talk about autistic rep! This is a very interesting question and I’m so glad you asked.

Obviously this is going to be my own opinion (and to some extent, things I’ve talked about with other autistic people) so it’s not representative of the whole community. There is no absolute do/don’t rules here, because autistic people are as different from each other as allistic (non autistic) people are, so the rep is and needs to be varied and complex.

There are many overused tropes when it comes to autistic characters. I think the most obvious one is that a very large portion of autistic characters, especially in general media, are white, male and mostly cishet. It is a misconception that autism is more present in men, and autistic POC deserve rep. I’m not sure how widely known this is, but there is also a much higher fraction of queer autistic people than among the general population. (I tried to find some more articles to link here but I don’t have any on hand and looking this up is a minefield I noped out of immediately. I’ll try to come back with clearer resources).

The usual autistic character is usually of one of two types: little white boy who doesn’t speak, where the story is invariably about his parents/siblings/teacher and never about him, or adult white man who has “Asperger’s” (or maybe isn’t even clearly identified as autistic) and is socially awkward and a genius, usually in math or computers. Those are very much overused stereotypes. Both are often portrayed incorrectly as well: the nonspeaking child is usually only portrayed through the eyes of allistic people and not given any kind of personality, and the adult man often has very little personality other than their genius and their bluntness, doesn’t seem to have any other autistic traits than the ones allistics are meant to admire or laugh at (think Sheldon of TBBT).

That is not to say that all those characters are bad rep, but it would be really nice to see more variety. I want to see autistic POC. I want to see autistic women and nonbinary people. I want to see autistic WOC & nonbinary POC. And I want to see more diversity in the autistic traits that they have, but also in their personalities. Autism isn’t a personality, even though it is part of a person’s identity and affects who they are directly. Autistic characters should have their own likes and dislikes, dreams and hurdles to overcome that aren’t linked to their autism, and their own agency. This last one is especially important in the case of any disabled characters (and doubly if it’s not a man) because this is something that isn’t often given to disabled characters.

Now into slightly more details:

- Autistic geniuses do exist, but that trope is way overused and usually portrayed badly. That doesn’t mean it should never be used again, but it should be done carefully. Characters like House (House, MD), Sherlock (BBC Sherlock) or Sheldon (TBBT) have imo done actually harm to our community, and definitely to me personally (because identifying with a character who self-identifies as a “high-functioning sociopath” is didn’t really help my mental health when I was 16 and depressed). They are either assholes to the people around them, or their awkwardness is played for laughs. You’ll notice that these are also characters who aren’t formally identified as autistic in the shows, even though they are clearly autistic-coded. I do have examples of autistic(-coded) genius characters I think are quite well done, like Sherlock in Elementary or Flynn, Cassie and Jake in The Librarians. Parker, in Leverage, could go into this category, but I’d say that her ‘genius’ is of a different sort, and it’s an interesting twist on the trope.

- Nonspeaking/semi-speaking autistics are underrepresented as full characters (ie outside of the trope mentioned above). That would be really nice to see, but please do proper research before trying to write it. I would love to see characters using AAC tablets or sign language, for example.

- A lot of autistic people also have other disabilities. That can range from other neurodivergences & mental illnesses (ADHD, bipolar, dyslexia, PTSD, etc), physical disabilities, chronic illnesses (some illnesses like EDS have a high co-occurrence with autism). A lot of autistic people are queer. Both of those are things I’d really like to see more of.

- Stimming. The stimming I’ve seen portrayed, when it’s even there (it tends to be mostly forgotten in the genius-type storylines), tends to be very stereotypical. We all have different ways of interacting with our environment and of communicating. There are a lot of ways to flap (clapping, hitting fists together, fluttering fingers, etc), to rock, to self-soothe. I’d like to see characters who use chew toys and stim toys, who stim-dance, who sing, who echolalize a lot.

- Meltdowns. [mention of self-harming stims] This one is a bit delicate. Writers who have an autistic character tend to want to show them in a meltdown at some point to sort of “drive home” that they’re autistic and what it means. I get that, but I also think that it’s something that is hard to portray respectfully if you’re not autistic yourself, and maybe you should really think about whether it’s necessary. If you do decide to do it: not all autistic people will hit their head or hurt themselves or get angry. I tend to just burst in tears and be unable to stop for hours. There are many ways to melt down.

- Specific interests. While math and computers are common specific interests, they are way overused. Specific interests can be anything. Mine is currently Shadowhunters, but also medieval swords and sailing ships and autism and linguistics. Specific interests can be lifelong, they can change overtime, they can last a month and be over. They can coexist simultaneously. Some autistic people don’t really have any.

- I would like to see more stories of late-diagnosed people, though maybe leave the stories about diagnosis and identification to autistic writers. I’d like to see older autistic people. Especially older autistic people who are more visibly autistic. I’d like to see autistic people who are thriving in life, who are in love and have a partner who loves them back, who are good at their job (but not geniuses), who don’t have a job but volunteer and create and do things, who have children or pets.

- Sensory stuff. Hypersensitive hearing tends to be the most common trope, though not necessarily overused, but there are so many other things you can do. We have a lot of senses (more than the usual 5), and autistic people can be hyper and hyposensitive to each of them, sometimes both at the same time. So you can have your character struggle to feel pain, but be bothered by lights. They can be hypersensitive to color, or inversely seek it. They can love listening to the same music over and over again (that’s also a stim).

- As far as plots go. Again, agency is paramount. Their autism shouldn’t be their personality and their motivation. They shouldn’t be striving (or be required) to “overcome” their autism, and even less be cured of it. Accessibility barriers are a reality that should be reflected in fiction, but the story needs to be about more than that.

Here’s a post with some advice and things we’d like to see more of. I hope this was what you’re looking for!

full lip nonverbal emojis

Hello!

May I ask you a question?

I'm currently researching ways to respectfully portray nonspeaking characters in media.

I'm planning on writing a book at some point and one of the characters is nonspeaking.

I wish to portray them without promoting harmful stereotypes, so I've decided to ask people who are actually affected about the topic.

What would you say are things that should be avoided when portraying nonspeaking individuals?

And, a little more specific to the setting I'm writing, what AAC would be OK for a character to use in a setting without technology?

As I currently have it, most of the characters in the nonspeaking individual's social circle do know sign language. However, one of them doesn't at the beginning of the story. (They learn later.)

Would it be OK to use Morse code for communication here? Or writing in a notebook?

You are, of course, in no way obligated to answer my questions. Please don't feel pressured to do so.

Thank you for your time!

Hello! Thank you for asking. So, I’m a word with no technology then a notepad and sign language can be a very good tool. Not many people know Morse code, so unless it’s something you build into your story line and have as a neutral thing that most people know, then it can be confusing on why they know Morse code in the first place. If that makes sense.

Notepads are very useful, and I think that’s a great idea! I’d love to see how you build that into their storyline. Is the notepad old? Does the notepad have a story itself? I’d love to see a storyline for how they got the notepad, and how they managed to keep it and tend to it throughout their journey. As well as how they keep writing utensils. Such as pens and pencils, cause those run out eventually. Do they carry around a large supply of pencils and pens?

I’d love to see how you portray the nonspeaking character. How they became nonspeaking, if it’s been since birth or an injury or just something else. I’d love to see the character be diverse. Like a POC, further disabled, has other mental health conditions, etc etc. I’d love for the nonspeaking character not to be the comedian of the group, and actually be an essential part of the story. I’d also love to see how you portray the potential ableism they face, and how those around them react to finding out how and why they can’t speak.

I hope this helps! You’re free to ask further questions! Have a lovely day anon and I hope this gives you something.

Roman Holiday wins for most POC in a movie and it's a bunch of nonspeaking parts as Audrey Hepburn's Princess Ann is introduced to a number of foreign dignitaries

i give blanket general permission to reference & quote me (as long as mention my account/credit and probably mention i nonverbal higher support needs POC so people know where i coming from ) when advocate for higher support needs nonverbal nonspeaking level 2/3

in fact i encourage

if you are not an autistic who is semi/nonspeaking, an routinely AAC user, high support, a POC etc, you don’t get to speak over autistics who are!! even if you are autistic yourself!

i’m tired of autistics who don’t hold any of those identities / a mix of those identities thinking they can speak about our experience over us with actual lived experience!

i’m tired of you all cherry picking what you all focus on when nonspeaking autistics, etc. are mentioned—how so many of you all only focus on their autism and completely ignore fact that they are also nonspeaking :)