Kaelynn Partlow > Quotes

“Just because you can’t see my disability doesn’t mean it’s invisible. My autism is visible to those who know what to look for.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Except that, according to a study recently cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that’s simply not true: 26 percent of autistic people fit the criteria for profound autism (Hughes et al. 2023). By definition, most profoundly autistic people are not using or being represented on social media in the traditional sense. Just because you don’t see people like them as much as you do people like me doesn’t mean that they aren’t real or aren’t important.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“autism meltdowns. These behaviors result from an unmet need and/or a missing skill”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“It’s fair to say that autistic people represent the same cross-section of responses as all of humanity—maybe some autistic people don’t care, just like some neurotypical people don’t care. Beyond that, however, some people on the spectrum just haven’t yet gained the skills to tap into responses that will be meaningful to you.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Everyone has preferences or ideas about what is the right way to do something. But not everyone needs to follow these often self-made and self-enforced rules in order to be okay. If an alteration in a routine or expectation regularly causes significant distress”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Similar misfires can happen with all the senses of any autistic person. It’s not our actual ability to smell, touch, taste, hear, or see that’s heightened. Rather, it’s our brain’s interpretation of those senses that’s sometimes tuned differently from how the brains of most neurotypical people are tuned. Have you heard people say that “autistic people are wired differently”? This is part of what they mean.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“accommodations do not make things easier—they make things possible. Accommodations restore access to an environment or activity. Despite their inconvenience”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“To recap”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“I love and I hate”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Social feedback is best when it’s more actionable and less descriptive.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“If you’re able to help autistic people advocate for themselves, watch for moments similar to what’s described here. Behaviors that might initially look like rampant acting out can mean something else entirely. Such moments certainly do not feel like self-advocacy, but they’re tremendously important because they’re showing you where self-advocacy is needed most! Understanding these moments hopefully will help you teach your autistic person more reliable ways to advocate for the sensory input they need.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“That seems really upsetting.” “I’m sorry that bothers you so much.” “It’s really hard when your toy is missing.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“A social norm needs to be reduced to a sentence articulating the specifics along with a precise explanation of the rationale.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Just acknowledging an autistic person’s overwhelmed state of mind can make them feel heard.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“From the time I wake until I go to bed”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“I had to work hard to overcome my own psychological rigidity. While telling me to “be flexible” wasn’t particularly useful in and of itself”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“All this is to say that offering help with problem-solving”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Remember that”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Stims are normal and”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Rather than placing a social demand with a question (shoving candy in someone’s face), you can offer up some statements of your own to see what happens (setting out the candy bowl). “My favorite character in Bluey is Bingo.” “I am building a garage with my Legos.” “My day was fun because I got to eat my favorite food.” Turning questions into candy-bowl statements takes some practice and lots of patience. For starters, remember the principle that declarative statements deliver an optional invitation. They do not require a response! If the autistic person doesn’t immediately respond with a corresponding statement, don’t repeat the statement or follow up with a question. Instead, try putting out a different bowl of candy.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“In my experience, scripting can serve two functions. The first is self-soothing: Repeating familiar scripts can bring feelings of comfort (similar to the routines we discussed earlier). The second is to compensate for language deficits. For instance, if a person has difficulty asking others for help, they may pull a phrase from a favorite TV show and recite, “Help is on the way!”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Far too often others think that autistic people don’t feel empathy, but that’s really far from the truth, at least for some of us. We might struggle to understand another person’s emotion, but we don’t struggle to feel empathetic about what we do understand. Autistic people usually feel everything larger than average.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“I have noticed that people frequently ask multiple questions in a row”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Here’s what a good therapist should be doing: teaching autistic people skills that will help them remove the barriers they face because of their diagnosis.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“I often field questions about why so many autistic people struggle with eye contact. The shortest answer I can give is that it feels physically uncomfortable. Autistic people describe eye contact as stressful and distracting because they have to spend a great deal of mental energy on maintaining eye contact instead of focusing on the words.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Direct communication builds trust with autistic people. I know this from personal experience. My most trustworthy relationships don’t require me to pick up on all those implied meanings and indirect requests; they don’t rely on a not-so-mutual understanding of social customs. Conversely, I distrust people who make requests through sideways hints. Especially when I need explicit instruction about something, I get uncomfortable when people won’t directly explain what they want me to do.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“But the point here is to determine what else besides a regular job might (1) give the autistic person a means to contribute to those beyond family, and (2) give the autistic person personal satisfaction—motivation! Unfortunately, I still can’t give you hard-and-fast rules, but I do strongly recommend that you use the same measuring tools: What adds value to the autistic person’s life now? And what brings at least a little progress now? Not years from now—if we’re lucky, or if progress starts happening. What can we do today? What would make the autistic person happier? What do they see as valuable?”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“I remarked that it couldn’t be fun for him that he felt he needed to yell at them and”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“all of us can be too quick to believe that the autistic person in our world is not interested in the connection we’re offering”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Completing a familiar routine can comfort us in the same way that snuggling up with a warm blanket”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication