Life on the Bridge 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

“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

“For many autistic people, the major challenge in this area is identifying what someone else feels when it’s different from what we feel. But not understanding someone’s perspective and not caring about their perspective are totally different. I can’t speak for all autistic people, but I believe that most of us do care about others’ feelings. We may struggle not only to identify others’ feelings but also to understand how to respond.”
― 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

“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

“An autistic person who starts a disruptive behavior might be seeking sensory stimulation. Even if that particular behavior shouldn’t be tolerated, it’s still important to ensure that the sensory need is met—ideally, of course, with activities that don’t get on everyone else’s nerves or cause physical danger. To accomplish that, we have to identify the sensation the autistic person is seeking. Then we attempt to replicate the sensation in a way that’s safe, sanitary, and socially acceptable.”
― 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

“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

“Unlike stimming, perseveration usually starts from anxiety. Its association with feelings of restlessness and worry makes it different from an autistic person’s tendency to have special interests, which we will discuss later.”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“Perseveration can include repeating the same questions, even if they’ve already been answered; insisting on having the same conversation over and over; or being unable to break away from repetitive thoughts on one topic or stop movements such as repeatedly rearranging items. An even more complex form of perseveration is holding on to certain emotions long after the situation that caused those emotions has passed.”
― 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 I do want to emphasize that practice is a tremendously valuable tool for the autistic community. I know that “practice makes perfect” applies to the world at large. In my world it is more often true that “practice makes possible.” Whether you are someone on the spectrum yourself or someone supporting an autistic person, I challenge you to spend some time in practice.”
― 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

“Declarative statements focus on you, on your thoughts, ideas, or opinions, rather than the child’s. Declarative statements are meant to be inviting. You use them to offer valuable interaction that allows social demands to feel more social and less demanding.”
― 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

“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

“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

“Life on the Bridge reminds us that representation matters, that diversity within communities is something to be celebrated rather than homogenized, and that the courage to be vulnerable in service of others”
― 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

“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

“rigidity”
― 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

“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

“If a person can’t yet take part in setting goals”
― 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 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

“Newly acquired important information seems to float around aimlessly in my brain for a couple of hours”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

“executive functioning. Such skills typically begin developing around age three and continue developing until early adulthood. People with a variety of neurological differences”
― 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 an argument”
― Kaelynn Partlow, Life on the Bridge: Linking My World to Yours as an Autistic Therapist – A Practical Insider's Guide to Autism and Communication

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