{"id":2218,"date":"2015-04-14T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=2218"},"modified":"2020-12-10T08:16:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T08:16:11","slug":"writing-autistic-characters-behaviorizing-vs-humanizing-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2015\/04\/14\/writing-autistic-characters-behaviorizing-vs-humanizing-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Autistic Characters: Behaviorizing vs. Humanizing Approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you want to portray an autistic character, how do you do it \u2014 especially if you are not autistic yourself?<\/p>\n

One approach is to describe visibly autistic things we do (“behaviors”): meltdowns, handflapping, not making eye contact, making social gaffes, taking things literally. These are shown in contexts where a non-autistic person wouldn’t have the same reactions. The reader is expected to see us as autistic because<\/em> our behaviors are shown as out of place. The autism is being located in the behavior, which is shown as wrong for the situation, or, for positively viewed behaviors, at least as unusual for the situation.<\/p>\n

Here is a key insight to creating realistic autistic characters: Autistic people do not do the visibly autistic things we do because of \u201cautism,\u201d full stop.<\/strong> We do things because, like non-autistic people, we are responding to our experiences of the world, and one of the characteristics of being autistic is that our experiences of the world differ from those of non-autistic people.<\/p>\n

Sensory difficulties can make the world louder, more painful, more overwhelming. Social difficulties make the world more confusing and unpredictable. Eye contact can be so distracting that it prevents us from attending to what someone else is saying. It may look like we\u2019re in the \u201csame\u201d situation as a non-autistic person, but our actual experience can be very different!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The upside of different experiences is that some situations present us with more fun. Some situations offer the chance to pattern-find, and using skills and talents can give a sense of flow and accomplishment. Some situations offer information relevant to special interests, which can be great! Some situations are safe for autistic people to stim in (e.g., handflapping, repeating noises), which many autistic people find pleasant and relaxing.<\/p>\n

Our external circumstances can differ, too. When other people identify us as autistic, or acknowledge that we are autistic, they change their behavior towards us in ways that are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. Bullies and abusers sometimes target autistic people because we are often more socially isolated and sometimes visibly identifiable as different. Some parents expend major resources on trying to make their kids no longer (visibly) autistic, which can include abusive therapies. On the upside, when people know we are autistic, we may have more access to both formal and informal accommodations, like people being more understanding when we can\u2019t go to loud and noisy places because of sensory issues. Other people\u2019s responses to us are incredibly<\/em> important because they are major drivers of our experiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Representations in fiction impact how people think of us. This can have direct consequences for our real-life experiences. A behavior-only portrayal of autism \u2014 one that locates autism in our actions rather than our experiences, one in which they are portrayed as out of place in the (assumed normal) situation \u2014 conveys (intentionally or unintentionally) that behaviors can be eliminated without reference to the reasons we do them. Let\u2019s call this a behaviorizing portrayal of autism, because it shows our actions without the context of experience. Behaviorizing portrayals of autism suggest to readers that our experiences are irrelevant and that our actions are meaningless, wrong responses to situations. <\/strong>This can convey to the reader that they don’t need to think about the character\u2019s experiences, and don\u2019t need to use their empathy to understand the link between the situation and our actions.<\/p>\n

When people think our behaviors are meaningless, they may attempt to remove them, or to ignore or deny the impact of situations on our experiences. But the responses we make to our environments are often coping skills. For example, stimming or not making eye contact can help us attend to what people are saying to us. Trying to remove coping skills without recognizing and responding to their purpose is harmful. Removing behaviors that we enjoy, when they are not hurting anyone else, is harmful.<\/p>\n

The best portrayals of autistic characters that I’ve read show their experiences. They show the situation we are actually experiencing, not the one a non-autistic character or the (assumed) non-autistic reader would experience. This is a humanizing portrayal of autism: It recognizes that we have internal experiences and motivations and responses.<\/strong> A humanizing portrayal of autism can require thinking (sometimes pretty hard) about what experiences are like for autistic characters, so that you can show those experiences as the links between our situations and our responses. It\u2019s also good practice in general to know what your characters\u2019 motivations are and why they do what they do.<\/p>\n

Note that some portrayals are intermediate between behaviorizing and humanizing, or shift back and forth throughout a book.<\/p>\n

Some concrete examples<\/h5>\n

Here are some examples of the kind of thing I\u2019m talking about:<\/p>\n