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Speaker 1: Pushkin. A little content warning. We get into some pretty

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Speaker 1: troubling descriptions of autism from back in the day in

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Speaker 1: this episode, plus some deluxe feelings and some tears, so

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Speaker 1: keep that in mind when listening. Okay, onwards. I'm a

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Speaker 1: person who wants to know all the answers. It drove

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Speaker 1: my parents' nuts when I was a kid. I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to know everything, and this autism evaluation process was

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Speaker 1: no different. I didn't just want to blindly take a

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Speaker 1: bunch of tests and spill my guts out to a therapist.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to understand the legacy of autism diagnostics. So

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Speaker 1: I put on my reporter hat and dug into it.

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Speaker 1: And by reporter hat, I mean a jaunty little fedora

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Speaker 1: that has a press pass champ hat band. All of

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Speaker 1: US journalists have one. The history of autism testing kind

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Speaker 1: of starts with a guy named doctor Bernard Rimland. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, Bernard and his wife Gloria welcome their

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Speaker 1: first child, Mark to the new dad. His infant son

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Speaker 1: seemed different from all the other Dodo babies in the nursery.

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Speaker 1: Baby Mark was wide eyed and precocious looking. Bernie recalled

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Speaker 1: when Bernie and Gloria got Mark home from the hospital,

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Speaker 1: they knew something was off. He screamed non stop, sometimes

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Speaker 1: twelve hours a day, and trying to comfort him only

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Speaker 1: made it worse. The howling was so constant and so

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Speaker 1: piercing that the Rimlins neighbors would complain real neighbor lead jerks.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the endless wailing that gave the

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Speaker 1: Rimlins pause. As Mark got older, he would also bang

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Speaker 1: his head against the wall, rock endlessly back and forth

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Speaker 1: and speaking full sentences but to no one. Once he shouted,

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Speaker 1: come on, let's play ball out of nowhere, Much to

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Speaker 1: his parents' surprise, Bernie and Gloria knew this was far

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Speaker 1: from typical behavior. Together, the harried parents took Mark to

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Speaker 1: pediatricians and psychotherapists to figure out what was going on,

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Speaker 1: but none of the professionals had a clue what was wrong.

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Speaker 1: One of the psychologists they saw repeatedly asked, Bernie, why

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Speaker 1: do you hate your son? Not helpful. One thing you

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Speaker 1: need to know about old Bernie Rimland is that he

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Speaker 1: wasn't just a concerned dad. He was also a psychologist.

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Speaker 1: Beginning in the nineteen fifties, Bernie served as the director

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Speaker 1: of research at a naval base in California. He had

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Speaker 1: a PhD in experimental psychology and an expertise in psychometrics,

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Speaker 1: or the measurement of mental attributes, behavior and performance. So

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Speaker 1: it was Bernie's job to devise personnel testing programs for

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Speaker 1: the Navy. The dude clearly knew his way around data

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Speaker 1: and analysis, but Bernie's professional pedigree didn't make it any

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Speaker 1: easier for the Rimlans to get answers about Mark. There

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Speaker 1: was no Google or YouTube or Facebook back then, no

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Speaker 1: parents support groups or school based programs, and the doctors

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Speaker 1: were practically useless. The standard advice at the time for

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Speaker 1: parents of kids like Mark was to institutionalize them and

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Speaker 1: basically forget they ever existed. Kids who behave like Mark

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Speaker 1: were considered demented and labeled as freaks, repulsive, and unworthy

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Speaker 1: of care. At the suggestion that Bernie institutionalized Mark, he

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, no, we're not doing that. He

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Speaker 1: and Gloria were going to figure this out. They were

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Speaker 1: going to do with the medical community couldn't or wouldn't

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Speaker 1: do so. The pair poured through their old psychology textbooks

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Speaker 1: and finally landed on what they thought was the answer,

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Speaker 1: Mark was autistic. Because this was the fifties, most doctors

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Speaker 1: had never heard of autism. It was like autism what autism?

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Speaker 1: And those who did know what autism was described it

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Speaker 1: like this, children in a show in a glass ball,

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Speaker 1: cut off from the world around them. I mean, was

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Speaker 1: the kiddes snow globe? Why was he in a glass ball?

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Speaker 1: But this was the way autism, or infantile autism as

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Speaker 1: it was called then, was talked about in Mark's youth,

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Speaker 1: if it was talked about at all. Autistic people were afflicted, cursed, possessed,

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Speaker 1: they had demons, they weren't right. So basically prevailing ideas

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Speaker 1: about autism at the time were trash. And because there

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Speaker 1: was hardly any clinical understanding of the condition, many autistic

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Speaker 1: kids and their parents were left to fend for themselves.

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Speaker 1: But our pal Bernie figured he could change that. He

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Speaker 1: was like, why can't I come up with some sort

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Speaker 1: of standard test for autism. I have all the psych skills,

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Speaker 1: I'm all about psychometrics, I can do this thing or

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Speaker 1: something like that. And it's kind of because of this

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Speaker 1: diy Dad, that I found myself sitting in front of

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Speaker 1: my computer on a mid November Day, staring down a

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Speaker 1: half dozen autism tests. You're listening to the Loudest Girl

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Speaker 1: in the World. Who is not your high school best friend.

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Speaker 1: It's me, Lauren Ober The Loudest Girl in the World

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Speaker 1: is a show about finding yourself broken in a pretty

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Speaker 1: dark place and emerging from that place a mostly glued

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Speaker 1: back together person, for better or worse. There's a long

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Speaker 1: history of parent involvement in autism, but Bernard Rimland might

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Speaker 1: be the most influential autism parent. Once he and his

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Speaker 1: wife landed on an autism diagnosis for their son, Bernie

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Speaker 1: was going to fix him and cure all the other

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Speaker 1: autistic kids in the process. After nearly a decade of

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Speaker 1: obsessive research and observation of his son and other kids

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Speaker 1: like him, Bernie published a book in nineteen sixty four.

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Speaker 1: It was called Infantile Autism, The Syndrome and Its Implications

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Speaker 1: for a Neural Theory of behavior. Infantile autism apparently was

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Speaker 1: a rare and mystifying disorder of obscure ideology and uncertain prognosis.

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Speaker 1: This is from the nineteen sixty eight educational film Infantile

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Speaker 1: Autism The Invisible Wall. It is predominantly characterized by self

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Speaker 1: imposed isolation disinterest in other persons, along with a compulsive

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Speaker 1: interest in mechanical objects, insistence on the preservation sameless and

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Speaker 1: highly characteristic language. Behavior. At the back of Bernie's book

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Speaker 1: was a questionnaire called the Diagnostic Checklist for Behavior Disturbed Children.

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Speaker 1: The questionnaire, or E one as it came to be known,

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Speaker 1: revolutionized the assessment and diagnosis of autistic kids. Here's Rimland

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Speaker 1: explaining his checklist in that same documentary. I myself and

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Speaker 1: working on an objective diagnostic checklist approach to this problem.

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Speaker 1: This checklist is capable of picking out cases of infantile autism.

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Speaker 1: The checklist featured seventy six questions about a kid's behavior

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Speaker 1: from birth to age seven. Now, to my non scientist brain,

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Speaker 1: these questions seem I don't know, kind of harsh, definitely

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Speaker 1: not from the perspective of an actual autistic person, Like

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Speaker 1: is the child destructive? Did you ever suspect the child

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Speaker 1: was nearly deaf? Will the child readily accept new sweaters, pajamas, etc.

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Speaker 1: Does the child say phrases over and over in a hollow,

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Speaker 1: parrot like or echo like voice to no purpose? And

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Speaker 1: my favorite, does the child look through or walk through

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Speaker 1: people as though they weren't there. And the answer to

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Speaker 1: that is yes, because the child is a ghost. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So the first standardized tool for assessing autism definitely framed

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Speaker 1: autism as a problem and autistic kids as troubled. But

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Speaker 1: at the time it was the only one of its kind.

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Speaker 1: There were no other resources like it, which is why

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Speaker 1: Bernie was getting inundated with mail. After the book with

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Speaker 1: the questionnaire came out, parents desperate for answers were ripping

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Speaker 1: the questionnaire from the book, filling it out, sending it

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Speaker 1: to Bernie in the hopes that he would do some

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Speaker 1: tabulations and let them know what was up with their kid.

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Speaker 1: They needed to know the why hind their children's atypical behaviors.

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Speaker 1: Here's some parents from that same educational film. And we

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Speaker 1: noticed this stiffly. Whenever you try to pick him up.

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Speaker 1: He never would seem to mold himself to a source,

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Speaker 1: kind of Richard like. But he chose to write on

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Speaker 1: the wall, and he wrote, and no amount of schooling

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Speaker 1: with health. We were the only half in the whole community.

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Speaker 1: They had his words of the ceiling. He's just like

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Speaker 1: almost like a little robot or a computer. Things come

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Speaker 1: in and come out exactly. It was like go in

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Speaker 1: word for word, yes, because all autistic people are robots.

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Speaker 1: Even though our buddy Bernie was pissed that people were

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Speaker 1: tearing pages from his book, he grated every questionnaire and

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Speaker 1: got back to every parent. Many of them viewed Bernie

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Speaker 1: as a savior or a saint. He gave them answers

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Speaker 1: and hope. Sadly, though, Bernard went on to have some

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Speaker 1: pretty garbage ideas about autistic people. He was of the

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Speaker 1: school that autistic people need to be fixed or can

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Speaker 1: be cured, like how some confused people think gay folks

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Speaker 1: can be turned straight. Burnie also peddled the myth that

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Speaker 1: vaccines caused autism, which they do not. He supported aversives

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Speaker 1: like electric cattle prods, and he compared autistic kids to

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Speaker 1: animals like here in that same documentary. What's interesting about

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Speaker 1: training autistic cholity as opposed to training animals is that

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Speaker 1: when you train an animal, he can learn only those

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Speaker 1: tricks that you've trained, and then nothing more. However, even

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Speaker 1: though that that hair shown for several improvement have never

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Speaker 1: to my knowledge, become truly normal, who yish Burnie's ideas

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Speaker 1: about fixing and Curing did a lot of harm to

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Speaker 1: autistic kids. Plus he influenced generations of parents into thinking

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Speaker 1: their autistic kids were deficient instead of just different. But

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Speaker 1: Bernie was the first to come up with a standardized

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Speaker 1: evaluative tool for autism, so we got to give him that. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: the E one checklist gave way to other methods of

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Speaker 1: evaluating folks for autism. There's no definitive test because, as

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Speaker 1: I mentioned before, if you know one autistic person, you

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Speaker 1: know one autistic person. But at least the test today,

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Speaker 1: like the ones I was prepping to take, aren't asking

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Speaker 1: is the child cuddly? Or do people consider the child

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Speaker 1: especially attractive? These tests were important for me as an

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Speaker 1: adult because I wanted to understand my brain and my

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Speaker 1: challenges and maybe even my strengths. I wanted a name,

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Speaker 1: or a framework or a prism through which to view

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Speaker 1: my own experience, and if I'm honest, I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to fill in a bunch of circles with my pencil.

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Speaker 1: Just kidding. The tests are online. After the break, we

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Speaker 1: get into them, I mean, we really get into them.

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Speaker 1: As I mentioned in a previous episode, Doctor Natalie Engelbrick,

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Speaker 1: the Canadian psychotherapist I was working with to get an

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Speaker 1: evaluation has a two part process, a preliminary assessment and

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Speaker 1: then a formal screening report. And the preliminary assessment consists

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Speaker 1: of thirteen questions that require written answers plus six psychometric tests,

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Speaker 1: also a follow up appointment to go through all the

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Speaker 1: information with doctor Natalie. Because I am a notorious heel dragger,

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Speaker 1: I put off taking all the tests. It just seemed

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Speaker 1: too intimidating. For weeks, I literally had take autism test

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Speaker 1: on my to do list along with paint bedroom, get

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Speaker 1: glasses fixed, and buy new blinds for living room. Finally,

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Speaker 1: on a random Friday, I fired up the old computer

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Speaker 1: and got to it. All. Right, well, I guess today

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Speaker 1: is today. I'm gonna do this screening questionnaire. Okay. The

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Speaker 1: first question was what differences in social interactions do you experience?

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Speaker 1: Such as emotions, interests, initiating conversations, interrupting, not knowing when

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Speaker 1: to talk. Oh man, we're getting into it right out

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Speaker 1: of the gate, no four play or nothing. I feel

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Speaker 1: little anxious about doing this because I don't think I've

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Speaker 1: had to write anything about social interactions or relationships or

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Speaker 1: steaming behavior before. So that's a little bit stressful to

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Speaker 1: put it down on paper because it's just something I've

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Speaker 1: never done before. But anxiety or not, I just had

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Speaker 1: to get on with it. One of the first questions

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Speaker 1: was do you engage in stereotyped or repetitive motor movements

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Speaker 1: known as stimming behavior, hand flapping, fidgeting, aligning objects, humming,

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Speaker 1: repeating phrases, etc. If so, what are your stems? I

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Speaker 1: was pretty proud of my answer, I wrote, I would

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Speaker 1: say that I am a casual rocker. When I wait

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Speaker 1: in line, I tend to rock back and forth. I

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Speaker 1: also often find that my legs are in motion when

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting down. If my legs are crossed, I'm always

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Speaker 1: moving my foot in a circular direction. Also, when I'm

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Speaker 1: in bed, I am often rubbing my feet together. I

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Speaker 1: often don't notice it and my girlfriend has to ask

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Speaker 1: me to stop. But what I really should have written

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Speaker 1: was yes, I stim by rubbing my fingers back and forth,

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Speaker 1: over and over and over on a particularly disgusting blanket

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Speaker 1: that my girlfriend calls linus the jankie blankie, and that

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Speaker 1: is a source of great shame for me. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing it now, even though the repetitive motion and

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Speaker 1: overtime has caused not only tennis elbow, but also golfer's elbow.

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Speaker 1: Who knew there was such a thing. The rest of

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Speaker 1: the questions were equally stressful to answer. What differences in

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Speaker 1: relationships do you experience? Such as difficulty adjusting behavior two

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Speaker 1: different social contacts? Making friends? I've had a really hard

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Speaker 1: time making friends Over the years. As I've aged, I've

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Speaker 1: gotten better at it. But when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: I had no friends. I mean I was friendly with

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Speaker 1: What are your sensory differences slash challenges? There are certain

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Speaker 1: textures that just really feel bad, Like I hate the

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Speaker 1: feeling of my thumb circling the waistband of my underwear

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Speaker 1: when I'm pulling up my pants. Do you camouflage slash masks?

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Speaker 1: I'm a woman with a very public job. As you

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Speaker 1: change your behavior in order to fit in with others

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Speaker 1: more smoothly, they would laugh in my face because in

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Speaker 1: fact that has happened. Anything I hate a light time

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Speaker 1: in my adult relationships. I think I can have a

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Speaker 1: hard time, and I think those were this makes my skin.

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Speaker 1: After answering all those questions, I started to feel really bad.

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Speaker 1: I added this sentence to the bottom of my answer.

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Speaker 1: Writing this out is making me feel like a freak,

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Speaker 1: because it was. It made me feel so needy and particular,

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Speaker 1: and like, why can't you just get over this? This

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Speaker 1: isn't a pathology, this is just weirdness. But I kept

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Speaker 1: on writing, and two hours and five single space pages later,

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Speaker 1: I had a document summing up what I thought were

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Speaker 1: my challenges. A few days later I started the psychometric tests.

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Speaker 1: Make it somewhat Oh, come on now, whatever, Sometimes this

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Speaker 1: nonsense words get into it. Mccarronian the pot boo documenting.

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Speaker 1: Take screenshots of your answers and results, should make a

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Speaker 1: morquy section windows. Well, I'm a screenshotting this the process

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Speaker 1: of the images, name all the files accordingly. This is

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Speaker 1: unnecessarily complicated, I think. So I have to answer thirteen

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Speaker 1: questions typed out, and then I have to do one, two, three, four,

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Speaker 1: five six psychometric tests. Oh god, all right, Oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: gotta do it first, the AQ or Autism Quotient test.

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Speaker 1: This tool was developed in two thousand and one by

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Speaker 1: Sir Simon Baron Cohen, a British clinical psychologist and cousin

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Speaker 1: to actor Sasha Baron of borat fame. Simon's a bit

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Speaker 1: of a lightning rod in neurodivergent circles because of his

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Speaker 1: theory that autistic people see the world through a mail

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Speaker 1: lens and are mostly interested in things that are stereotypically male,

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Speaker 1: like trains or computers, or telling people that they're wrong.

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Speaker 1: Some of the questions seem skewed towards men and boys,

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Speaker 1: like I usually notice car number plates or similar strings

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Speaker 1: of information. Definitely agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, definitely disagree.

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Speaker 1: I definitely disagree because I am enumerate and numbers give

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Speaker 1: me hives. Some questions just seemed outdated. I would rather

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Speaker 1: go to a library than a party, like who's just

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Speaker 1: hanging out of a library for fun these days? Besides

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Speaker 1: little children? Over the next few days, I took the

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Speaker 1: rads R the Aspy Quiz, the Cat Queue RBQ two A,

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Speaker 1: and the VIA tests and answered questions like have others

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Speaker 1: told you that you have an odd posture or gait?

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Speaker 1: And are you often surprised when others tell you that

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Speaker 1: you have been rude? And do you like tongue kissing?

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Speaker 1: My answers if you're wondering, were no, yes, and it

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Speaker 1: depends if the person I'm making out with is a

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Speaker 1: total babe. Gross. One of these tests really made me nuts.

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Speaker 1: All I'm saying right now is it. One of these

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Speaker 1: goddamn tests is making me do math? I mean literally like,

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Speaker 1: add up these scores in this statement and you know,

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Speaker 1: carry the one and flip this number around. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: h No, I didn't sign up for this. Sorry, I

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Speaker 1: have popcorn in my mouth. I'd rather like, literally not

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Speaker 1: know what is going on than have to do math.

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Speaker 1: This is truly bullshit and I didn't sign up for this.

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Speaker 1: It's literally hurting my brain right now. After a few

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Speaker 1: days of self examination, I was exhausted. Bernie Rimlin's initial

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Speaker 1: E one questionnaire was geared towards parents observing their kids,

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Speaker 1: but here I was trying to assess my own damn self,

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Speaker 1: and that felt weird and unpleasant. It was not like

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Speaker 1: taking a Cosmo quiz. But I did it, and then

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Speaker 1: I sent everything off to doctor Natalie and tried to

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Speaker 1: put the whole experience out of my mind. Not two

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Speaker 1: weeks later, I got an email from doctor Natalie. The

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Speaker 1: subject line read in all caps screening report, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't open the email. Instead, I texted this to my

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Speaker 1: girlfriend Hannah. I got an email from the autism doc,

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Speaker 1: but you said I can't open it without you. It

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Speaker 1: was a Saturday afternoon when I got the screening report

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Speaker 1: email and Hannah was out of town for the day.

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Speaker 1: Hana rope back, No, please don't. If you're desperate, we

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Speaker 1: can do it tonight by zoom or during the day tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: I'll come over. So I just had to sit on

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Speaker 1: my hands and not open the email. The restraint, I

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Speaker 1: took the dog for a long walk, ordered tie takeout

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Speaker 1: and binge Season four of The Crown. It felt like

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Speaker 1: the longest night of my life. The next morning, Hannah

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Speaker 1: came over to my apartment. Have you like really not

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Speaker 1: opened this yet? No? Look, look I have not opened this.

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Speaker 1: Did you not open it because I wasn't here and

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Speaker 1: I made you not open it? Or did you not

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Speaker 1: open it because you because it's too big? No, because

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Speaker 1: you made me not open it. You literally sent me

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Speaker 1: like nine hundred text messages that were like absolutely, do

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Speaker 1: not open it in like all caps, like do not

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Speaker 1: open it. I love you, don't open it. Don't open it.

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Speaker 1: But now the way it was over all was about

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Speaker 1: to be revealed? Or was it I'm not sure how

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Speaker 1: one is supposed to feel when anticipating the results of

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Speaker 1: an autism screening assessment. I mean, it's not like I

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Speaker 1: was waiting to hear whether a biopsy found cancer or anything.

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Speaker 1: Regardless of the results of my screening, nothing fundamental would

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Speaker 1: change in my life, right I wasn't going to die

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Speaker 1: or lose my home or get fired from my job.

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Speaker 1: I mean, mostly because I didn't have one. Still, I

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Speaker 1: was freaked out. Well, what are you more worried that

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Speaker 1: it's yes or no? I just want to note that

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Speaker 1: the dog is sitting snuggling with you right now when

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Speaker 1: I'm the one who needs comfort like dog, don't you

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Speaker 1: realize like I'm the one in a situation here, whatever

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Speaker 1: we're now, I'm just rambling. Should just open it? Why

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Speaker 1: are you looking at me like that? Because I'm okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm nervous for you. I'm just nervous for you. It's

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Speaker 1: like a lot at state. Do you think I need

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Speaker 1: to have like a game plan of like if yes this,

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Speaker 1: if no this, like before you open it? Do you

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Speaker 1: need a game plan? I actually guess I didn't think

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Speaker 1: about what the scenarios where I'm always somebody who games

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Speaker 1: out like you're gaming out the logistics, Like, yes, I'm

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Speaker 1: gaming out the logistics because the logistics are how I

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Speaker 1: can manage my feelings around this or manage like what

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Speaker 1: you do. Because if you get a flat out like yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't see anything you hear you seem totally typical

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Speaker 1: and like, you know, everything is fine, then I think

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Speaker 1: that opens like a real Pandora's box of well, now

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Speaker 1: what and now what do I do? So let's say

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Speaker 1: she read everything you wrote, all sort of recollections of

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Speaker 1: your childhood and just like memories and pain points, and

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Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, it's just life, Like that's I don't

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Speaker 1: see any sort of discernible pattern here except like your you.

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Speaker 1: In what ways does that make you feel good? In

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Speaker 1: what ways does that make you feel bad? I think

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Speaker 1: it actually feels bad because I feel like there's this

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Speaker 1: collection of challenges and if they're not all talking to

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Speaker 1: each other and they're all these sort of discreet issues,

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Speaker 1: then it's like it just makes it harder to think

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Speaker 1: of how to adjust to them or how to reconcile

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Speaker 1: with the ways that they have impacted my life. I

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Speaker 1: think that being able to have word for something other

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Speaker 1: people will give you the word. The word is usually

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Speaker 1: like difficult, or the word is, you know, a pain

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Speaker 1: in the ass, or the word is picky, or there's

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Speaker 1: like a whole bunch of words that people will give

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Speaker 1: you and rigid, intractable, like in flat ball, and so

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Speaker 1: it's it's nice to have a word that you can

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Speaker 1: give back and be like, actually, I'm autistic. So that's

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Speaker 1: that's the problem with it being a no. It's like

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Speaker 1: you don't get the relief of having a word that

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Speaker 1: can kind of like clear out the other words. At

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Speaker 1: this point, I think we're just stalling here, but Hannah

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Speaker 1: is trying to keep us on task. What if it's

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Speaker 1: a yes? Oh what if it's a yes? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't actually don't know. I mean, I feel like

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Speaker 1: a little bit choked up even thinking about that. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I'm distracted by my dog who is nuzzling even further

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Speaker 1: into your lap. Okay, but I mean, how I'll feel,

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Speaker 1: I have no idea. I don't know how to anticipate that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we've been talking about it for so long,

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Speaker 1: and I really, I honestly don't know. So we're gonna

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Speaker 1: open this, but first, just name a couple of things

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Speaker 1: you might feel if it's a yes, this is a

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Speaker 1: lightning round, Lauren, you are officially diagnosed as autistic. That

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Speaker 1: I don't want to do that really anxiety like fear

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Speaker 1: right now you just answered them. You did it, A

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Speaker 1: little bit of relief, some anxiety like do I want

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Speaker 1: to tell anybody? Some shame, but also some like elation

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Speaker 1: because it's nice to have an identity, like what are

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Speaker 1: all the things? I mean, you just named all of them,

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00:26:27,196 --> 00:26:29,276
Speaker 1: and that actually is very helpful, so I don't have

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Speaker 1: to do it, Okay, I actually feel like a little

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00:26:35,276 --> 00:26:46,396
Speaker 1: bit sick about doing this actually, like A don't Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think I can actually open it, can I?

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Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it wasn't like I didn't. Maybe it

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00:27:03,876 --> 00:27:06,716
Speaker 1: wasn't that hard for me to not open it last

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Speaker 1: night because I didn't. I didn't really want to open it.

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00:27:14,636 --> 00:27:23,836
Speaker 1: I didn't actually think I would feel like bad. I

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Speaker 1: really didn't like I thought it would just like open

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00:27:26,276 --> 00:27:29,076
Speaker 1: the email, read it. It's fine, It's like no big deal,

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00:27:29,156 --> 00:27:41,916
Speaker 1: Like it's like not fine. I think I probably have

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00:27:41,996 --> 00:27:50,516
Speaker 1: to open it myself though, don't. I M fuck, where's

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00:27:50,596 --> 00:27:55,076
Speaker 1: my autism support dog? I got it together enough to

396
00:27:55,196 --> 00:27:59,276
Speaker 1: click on the email. Oh what use this link to

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00:27:59,356 --> 00:28:08,636
Speaker 1: download your screening assessment document? Oh god, what, I can't

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00:28:08,636 --> 00:28:13,836
Speaker 1: read all the words? Just click huh, just click it.

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00:28:14,436 --> 00:28:16,596
Speaker 1: I can't just put in an email because then, like

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00:28:16,756 --> 00:28:21,516
Speaker 1: people will see it had to downlook what I've literally thought.

401
00:28:21,516 --> 00:28:23,636
Speaker 1: I would just open an email and it would just

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00:28:23,676 --> 00:28:30,676
Speaker 1: be like budding. It would be a big yes, it

403
00:28:30,716 --> 00:28:37,956
Speaker 1: would just say you're autistic. Oh what? Oh what is this?

404
00:28:38,756 --> 00:28:43,636
Speaker 1: Who uses pages? I opened the attachment and I just

405
00:28:43,876 --> 00:28:47,076
Speaker 1: couldn't figure it out. It was a total word salad

406
00:28:47,116 --> 00:28:50,116
Speaker 1: to me, Like what was I even reading? Oh? My

407
00:28:50,276 --> 00:28:53,956
Speaker 1: fucking god, are you kidding me? It's like nine hundred

408
00:28:53,996 --> 00:28:58,556
Speaker 1: pages long. That's only one thing that you need to

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00:28:58,596 --> 00:29:52,116
Speaker 1: read For now. I don't see anything. Look again, You've

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Speaker 1: been listening to The Loudest Girl in the World. It's hosted, written,

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00:29:55,636 --> 00:29:59,356
Speaker 1: end executive produced by me Lauren Obert. Our senior producer

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Speaker 1: is writer. Also our associate producer is David John. Sophie

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Speaker 1: Crane is our showrunner and senior editor. Jake Gorski is

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00:30:07,596 --> 00:30:11,476
Speaker 1: our mix engineer. Music composed by my autistic Kiwee Pale

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Speaker 1: the Inimitable Lady Hawk. Our artwork was created by the

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Speaker 1: autistic illustrator Loretta Ipsum. The show was fact checked by

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Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez Cruzado, and our autism consultant is Sarah Cappett.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Mia Lobell and Leta Mullad. A

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Speaker 1: lot of the research in this episode came from Steve

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Speaker 1: Silberman's book NeuroTribes The Legacy of Autism in the Future

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Speaker 1: of Neurodiversity, as well as the book In a Different Key,

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00:30:47,236 --> 00:30:51,076
Speaker 1: The Story of Autism by John don Van and Karen Zucker.

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Speaker 1: John and Karen also hosts a podcast called Autism's First Child,

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Speaker 1: so check that out. Thanks for listening, friends,