According to the Oxford dictionary resilience means:
1. The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
2. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
Let's break that down shall we?
Firstly, resilience is the ability to put up with something that is challenging and to keep going despite the difficulties. It is in essence partly about helping to build up character in an individual - a character that can be tough, a character that means the person can get up after being knocked down.
Ok, so that's good right? Don't we want our children to be able to cope in this fierce and problematic world? To be able to get through the fires and floods (not literal ones we hope) that they might well experience in life and keep going? Well of course we do.
But here are the issues:
Schools teaching resilience to autistic children, when the schools do not recognise the impact ‘environments’ have on autistic children and young people.
When I say environment here I am referring to Dr Beardon’s “Autism plus environment = outcome”. By environment he doesn't just mean the physical building or area, but the people, the conditions, structures and regimes within the environment. So schools, colleges, universities are good examples.
If there is not the knowledge and understanding about the sensory, emotional, psychological, communication, executive functioning and social differences and needs of an autistic individual, then there is not going to be the understanding of what could cause anxiety, could lead to masking, exhaustion and trauma in an autistic person. Environments that are not safe cause trauma.
An environment might be:
Exclusive- not inclusive of differences (processing, communicating, socialising etc)
Noisy - screaming, shouting, echoes, raised voices of staff
Crowded -people bumping into you in busy coridoors
Stigmatising- othering, infantalisating, patronising
Demanding- expectations to be and 'behave' in typical ways, too much pressure and too much constant information downloads
Expecting constant switches of focus - not enough time for processing information, thoughts, emotions, leaving attention tunnels
A place where an autistic person does not feel heard, understood, included, believed
Somewhere an autistic person does not have any or enough autonomy
Somewhere that lacks structure and predictability or where there is unsuitable structure
Wherever there is an understanding about autism that is based upon the outdated and pathologising, medical model, which teaches that autistic people have among many other things, impaired social, emotional and communication capabilities (‘theory of mind’), then there will be the underlying belief that they need to be taught how to be more typical and therefore cope better with social situations.
At what cost?
The cost for autistic people is too high. Teaching an autistic person to put up with/cope with/withstand and be resilient, is in reality extremely hazardous, if it means the inevitable - they increase masking. Masking is a trauma response, a mostly subconscious, involuntary reaction (fawning). It is suppressing and hiding psychological, sensory and emotional distress and becoming compliant and at risk of increasing experiences of exploitation (because of stigmatisation and ableism). It also means they end up burning out because all that masking and surviving is exhausting.
Teaching anyone (autistic or not) to be resilient, when there is not the understanding about the desperate need to change environments, means we are not making anywhere ‘better’ for anyone actually, but especially not neurodivergent folk, who are increasingly marginalised.
Not fully appreciating the challenges there are for people with disabilities and the particular challenges for many people who sit within various and multiple intersections (such as being black or brown and autistic, trans and autistic, etc) means marginalised people are pushed further to the peripheries in society, over and over again. Marginalised people do not need to be taught to be resilient. They need society, environments and communities to change and provide not just tokenistic accommodations and adjustments, but equal rights, inclusion and equity;they need justice.
We need more neurodivergent friendly environments, more spaces for autistic people for example to be together and share their deep interests, passions and feel free to stim. We need to see radical acceptance,
differences celebrated and included, rather than different people othered.
A recommended read about creating safe spaces is 'Creating safe spaces for autistic people' by Scott Neilson and Laura Hellfeld https://amzn.eu/d/0xnxuSP
Kommentare