Autistic Small Talk

Autistic Small Talk

by Vanessa Yaremchuk and Vince Freeborn

Society & Culture

Dyslexic Strengths

Vince and Vanessa have a brisk chat about Dyslexic Strengths and Complimentary Cognition. Professor Chesko: “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Autism” A Response to a Critique I Never Asked For By the excellent Professor Chesko https://open.substack.com/pub/thespeechprof/p/you-cant-blame-everything-on-your?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Dyslexic Strengths and Complementary Cognition: Taylor H and Vestergaard MD (2022) Developmental Dyslexia: Disorder or Specialization in Exploration?. Front. Psychol. 13:889245. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245/full Taylor H, Fernandes B, Wraight S. The Evolution of Complementary Cognition: HumansCooperatively Adapt and Evolve through a System of Collective Cognitive Search. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 2022;32(1):61-77. doi:10.1017/S0959774321000329 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/evolution-of-complementary-cognition-humans-cooperatively-adapt-and-evolve-through-a-system-of-collective-cognitivesearch/F198B30682343E92C7E9C986332D380A Erbeli, F.; Rice, M.; Paracchini, S. Insights into Dyslexia Genetics Research from the Last Two Decades. Brain Sci. 2022, 12, 27. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12010027 Neanderthal Art: It’s Oﬃcial: Neanderthals Created Art https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/neanderthal-art-discovery/

Autistic Joy and Glimmers

Vince and Vanessa cruise through Elliot Wassell's paper Experiences of Autistic Joy. Then they discuss glimmers, and share 2 field recordings containing stories of Autistic Joy. Wassell, E. (2025). Experiences of autistic joy. Disability & Society, 1–26. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2025.2498417 Autistic Girls Network: https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/ Glimmers https://autisticrealms.com/glimmers-autistic-joy-and-monotropism/ Life writings of Autistic people mentioned in Wassell’s paper: McAnulty, D. 2020. Diary of a Young Naturalist. London: Ebury. Kedar, I. 2012. Ido in Autismland: Climbing out of Autism’s Silent Prison. Sharon Kedar. Tammet, D. 2006. Born on a Blue Day: A Memoir of Asperger’s and an Extraordinary Mind. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Williams, D. 1992. Nobody Nowhere. London, Doubleday. Mór, C. 2007. A Blessing and a Curse: Autism and Me. London: Jessica Kingsley. James, L. 2017. Odd Girl Out: An Autistic Woman in a Neurotypical World. London: Bluebird. Lawson, W. 2000. Life Behind Glass: A Personal Account of Autism Spectrum Disorder. London Mountain Mansion Mentioned in Vince’s field recordings: https://mountainmansion.bandcamp.com/

Neural Connectomes and Strengths-based Autistic Identification

Vince and Vanessa talk fleetingly about contradictory research on autistic neural connectomes and swiftly cover 2 papers on strengths-based approaches to identifying and working with Autistic people. Autistic Connectomes Summary at Embrace Autism: https://embrace-autism.com/autistic-brain-diﬀerences-connectivity/ Human Connectome Project: https://www.humanconnectome.org/ Nick Walker forever The essay in which the greatly admired Nick Walker says: “Ultimately, to describe autism as a disorder represents a value judgment rather than a scientific fact.” https://neuroqueer.com/what-is-autism/ Strengths-based Autistic Identification Matt Lowry’s Reframing of the DSM Criteria: https://www.mattlowrylpp.com/blog/reframing-dsm-autism-criteria Autistic Culture Podcast: https://www.autisticculturepodcast.com/ Woods SEO, Estes A. Toward a more comprehensive autism assessment: the survey of autistic strengths, skills, and interests. Front Psychiatry. 2023 Oct 6;14:1264516. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1264516. PMID: 37867767; PMCID: PMC10587489. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10587489/ YAFAI, A.-F., VERRIER, Diarmuid and REIDY, Lisa (2014). Social conformity and autism spectrum disorder : a child-friendly take on a classic study. Autism, 18 (8),1007-1013. [Article] https://shura.shu.ac.uk/7450/3/Verrier_Autism_and_Conformity.pdf Urbanowicz A, Nicolaidis C, den Houting J, Shore SM, Gaudion K, Girdler S, Savarese RJ. An Expert Discussion on Strengths-Based Approaches in Autism. Autism Adulthood. 2019 Jun1;1(2):82-89. doi: 10.1089/aut.2019.29002.aju. Epub 2019 Apr 13. PMID: 36601531; PMCID:PMC8992818. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8992818/ Dr. Katie Gaudion https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staﬀ/dr-katie-gaudion/ Dr. Ralph James Savarese https://www.ralphsavarese.com/ Autistic Joy Wassell, E. (2025). Experiences of autistic joy. Disability & Society, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2025.2498417

Stimming, and the Farahar & Foster Three Dimensional Autistic Space Framework

Vince and Vanessa zoom through a chat about stimming followed by a speedy discussion of the Farahar & Foster Three Dimensional Autistic Space Framework. There may be a passing mention of the connection between mushrooms and ancient calendar systems.. Farahar & Foster three dimensions Autistic space framework Video by Chloe Farahar and Annette Foster explaining their framework:: https://vimeo.com/601839613 Farahar, C., & Foster, A. (2019, June 4th). Autistic observable and unobservable experiences, and the erroneous use of biological sex as a method to differentiate Autistics: Introducing the Internal and External Autistic Space. Presentation at The Participatory Autism Research Collective Third Critical Autism Studies Conference, LSBU, London. Chloe Farahar Bio at Aucademy: https://aucademy.co.uk/chloe-farahar-phd/ Annette Foster Bio at Aucademy: https://aucademy.co.uk/annette-foster/ Neuroqueer Heresies Nick Walker’s wonderful book is available at the Penticton Public Library: https://www.pentictonlibrary.ca/ Through various public libraries (as an ebook and and audiobook) via Hoopla: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ Via libro.fm (in audio format) which lets you support a local bookstore of your choice: https://libro.fm/ And various other places books are sold conveniently listed here: https://neuroqueer.com/books/ Stimming Video from aucademy that includes a guided stim at the end: https://www.youtube.com/live/51fqpWj61V8?si=F5HXYx0OzVjkXlZC

Autistic Identity and its Connection to Neuroqueerness

Vince and Vanessa rapidly review 2 papers about autistic identity and connect them to the concept of neuroqueer, then sprint through Vince’s project of inviting people to consider their neurotype. Show notes

Monotropism and Neuroqueerness

The episode opens with a great story from Sarah Willard. After which Vince and Vanessa have a speedy exchange about monotropism and the concept of neuroqueer. Show notes

Rachel Cullen's Autistic Pragmatic Language Hypothesis

Vince and Vanessa glance at Rachel Cullen’s Autistic Pragmatic Language Hypothesis, and demonstrate some autistic joy by discussing their love of plants. Show notes

Masking, and Prejudice in Research

Vince and Vanessa have a quick chat about masking, identity-first language, and institutionalized prejudice and bigotry against Autistic people within research that is not led by us. Things get dark. And then they get even darker. But at the very end you hear us laughing a lot while we semi-chaotically attempt to end the episode. Show notes

Empathy, Disability, and Representation

In their first episode, Vince and Vanessa briefly talk about the Double Empathy Problem, the Social Model of Disability, Autistic representation and Autistic spaces. They discuss the importance of Autistic researchers, and talk through some examples of what accommodation can look like, while sharing stories of their personal experiences within these topics. Warning: Somewhere in the middle, with hardly any apology, Vanessa does try to explain a joke.

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