Story
These quotes are listed alphabetically by author and then date published. They are included here because, in my opinion, they can spark important reflection. Click on a quote image for further discussion.
Alex Gillespie Enrico Gnaulati Temple Grandin Stanley I. Greenspan Paul E. McGhee Barry M. Prizant
Stuart G. Shanker Steve Silberman
BARRY M. PRIZANT - Continued...
”Human beings are hardwired to be socially intuitive, but autism poses challenges to developing that intuition.”
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 109.
”Typically people induce the often subtle, invisible conventions of social interaction. They learn by a process of immersion and osmosis, along with periodic coaching ("Please do not interrupt while Mommy's talking to Grandpa."). But for people with autism, the nature of their disability makes it very difficult to survey the social landscape and induce these rules. They can learn them, but it';'s like learning a second language as an adult, when it's much harder to achieve the same fluency and comfort as native speakers.”
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 110.
”When people with autism display behavior that appears to be abrupt or rude, or when they simply seem ablivious, it is often because their neurological wiring makes it difficult to weigh the many subliminal factors that help us read social situations.”
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 112.
"Language can be a barrier to social understanding because people with autism tend to interpret language literally, and we often do not say what we mean. That's why they can find metaphors, sarcasm, and other nonliteral uses of language endlessly confounding."
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. pp. 115-116.
"As much as our culture purports to value truth and candor, interacting with people with autism can make us realize how truly deceptive and dishonest the social world requires us to be."
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 118.
"If it's difficult for children on the spectrum to comprehend the subtle, hidden rules of social interaction, it can be even more challenging to gain an understanding of emotions--their own and those of others."
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 124.
"Emotions are abstract, intangible, and difficult to grasp, and people with autism often find it challenging to communicate about such matters, especially when doing so requires self-reflection. In the past some professionals and others have mistakenly believed that this difficulty and discomfort talking about feelings meant that people with autism somehow lacked emotion. Of course that's not true. They experience the same full range of human emotions we all do. If anything, theirs are magnified. Their challenge is understanding and expressing their own emotions and reading the emotion in others."
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 125.
"Emotions involve both cognitive and physiological reactions. We not only feel; we reflect on how we are feeling and why. We also experience emotions in our body."
Prizant, B. M. (2015) Uniquely Human. Simon & Schuster: New York, New York. p. 127.
