A class learning about autism and then their teacher shows them a video of her autistic friend Kenzie's interview about autism.
Storyboard-Text
Autism is a developmental disorder of variable severity that is characterized by difficulty in social interaction and communication and by restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behavior.
What do most autistic people act like, and what does their experience of the world feel like?
I'm going to show you kids a video that my friend, Kenzie, sent in of her being interviewed about autism, because she is autistic!
In a way, the way people unlike me describe autism is true, but a way I like to tell it is this. It's like all 5 of my senses are turned up to 100%. I catch everything going on, and yeah, it's overwhelming. It's not like I have super-hearing or super-vision, just things off topic catch my eye and distract me, which is a lot of the time why I can't learn very well.
A lot of the time people say autistic people find it hard to understand other, and hard to express themselves. In a way, that's true. When a lot of loud or bright or crazy things are happening, I get overwhelmed, stressed out, and uncomfortable. A lot of the time I need downtime, to get away from everyone else and all the problem in the world, just me. But autism is who I am, I can't change that I have, just how I can manage it.
In other words, unfamiliar things happening to me distract and upset me. It takes me linger to understand things than it does for mos people, which is why a lot of the time you see autistic people with special people in school. It;s not so much that I can't understand people or they can't understand me, but it is harder for me to understand others. I talk normally, but sometimes different from others which is why people don't always understand unless they know me already.
There are some things you should say or do around autistic people, and some things you should not. In the next clip I'll talk more about that.
After that is what TO DO to an autistic person.
1st we're going to show things NOT to DO to an autistic person.
FYI THIS IS ACTING NO ONE IS ACTUALLY BEING HURT OR ANYTHING IN THIS NEXT CLIP, SO LET'S GET TO IT!!!
Then, what NOT to SAY to someone like Kenzie
And finally, last we're going to show what TO SAY to an autistic person!