What I mean is people on the spectrum may face the treatment or discrimination equivalent to “Don’t excuse me for your autism!” when he or she’s having a meltdown dismissing it as “bad behavior” when it’s not. It becomes difficult from childhood if schools aren’t catered on accommodating this demographic, they’re considered normal physically but their outlook on life is different from their neurotypical counterparts.
Classroom teachers may not be trained to deal with such even if they’re told in advance, leading to mistaking meltdowns or being upset as “bad behavior” since it’s an additional challenge as opposed to teaching kids who are not Autistic. Some parents also tell their Autistic kid to “control your emotions” or “wipe those tears away” to avoid public humiliation (if kid causes a scene) including possible neurotypical onlookers & gossipers.
When kids have a tantrum at public settings (like malls or parks) or confined spaces (like inside a plane), this becomes taxing for parents on raising the kid while enduring awkward moments from onlookers who gossip “tell your child to shut up”. Having parents who understand is better than being ignorant even when informed, as parents who understand are likely to defend when their neurodivergent kid is being discriminated against.
There’s more info about Autistic kids than grown ups (what they fail to realize is that Autistic kids become adults over time, basically having to co-exist with it for the rest of their lives). Wearing a mask is temporary but not the permanent solution to the root cause of societal misunderstanding. Does it stem from the fact that physical ailments (crouches or wheelchairs) are visible in front of their eyes than neurodivergent people?
As in, they would not push someone on a wheelchair since that’s their method of mobility but feel fine on discriminating someone who is neurodivergent. They are not comparable in that sense, since a wheelchair bound person has a physical ailment while someone on the spectrum is able bodied. It could be that there are legal consequences for mistreating someone with a physical ailment versus a neurodivergent person.
We put them on edge the moment we’re in their space. This is why so many of us mask to blend in or my husband puts them off balance with an inappropriate joke and then wins them over with charm. They notice immediately. If you try to mask it, it will take hypervilligance because you have to change every bit of your body language and trailer or to whomever you’re talking to in order to put them at ease. This is incredibly mentally taxing and most people fail because they don’t have the trauma induced hypervilligance. A lot of us have significant trauma, some of which you’ve outlined here. Autistic kids are often very sensitive and it takes less to traumatize them than typical kids. An event may not seem overtly traumatizing and it will still traumatize neurodivergent children. To shame children, any children, about being able to control their emotions comes from a place of ignorance. Their brain is not developed enough in the best case to do this until well into adolescence. Neurodivergent children are also deficient in this region of the brain so they’re never going to be good at it. You can teach them to hide it but then they shame themselves into it and ruminate on it and before you know it, they have no self esteem and they’ve stuffed whatever is truly them under a mask. This will cause significant problems in adulthood and relationships. The science is new, people don’t know, I get that, but if you’re going to work with special needs kids you need to know, as a parent or a teacher.