Glossary

Choosing to behave in a difficult or disruptive fashion to achieve a specific end; unlike meltdowns and shutdowns, tantrums are CHOICES.

Tendril Theory is a description of Monotropic thinking created by EisforErin (EisforErin.com) to explain why it is difficult for neurodivergent people to be interrupted and to switch tasks suddenly.
https://eisforerin.com/2015/08/10/tendril-theory/

A long-debunked theory of autism that suggests that autistic people cannot see things from other people’s perspectives. Made popular by Simon Baron-Cohen (SBC) in the 1990. Despite being disproven regularly and consistently, this theory has permeated the understanding of autism held by society at large and has fed into the unfair and inaccurate perception of autistic people as being selfish and uncaring. SBC has used this theory to make statements such as the majority of autistic women are incapable of being good mothers.

An ephemeral feeling that is inferred by others from the pitch, quality, intonation, and choice of words used by an individual. Only certain tones are deemed acceptable.

Applying a personal bias to what someone else says and assuming what they meant.

A neurological condition that is characterised by involuntary movements and/or sounds; the involuntary movements/sounds are known as tics.

An experience that is disturbing, distressing, and/or harmful and that causes lasting emotional and psychological effects. Every person will have a different threshold for what is a traumatic event; any event that a person processes as being traumatic is a trauma.

As defined by Kieran Rose (The Autistic Advocate): Accumulating effects of cascading unremitting rapidly unfolding successive non-traumatic stressors, ordeals, or predicaments in space and time can produce effects remarkably similar to other types of trauma and PTSD-like symptoms. ‘Factitious’ is critically important in this definition, as it highlights that the trauma is real.

This incudes vicarious trauma (accumulation of exposure to hearing of traumatic events through first-hand accounts or narratives of the event); secondary trauma (sudden transmission via traumatic events being shared from one person to another or to a group of others); and compassion fatigue (trauma-like condition that results in emotional/physical fatigue from the support they give to others without having sufficient recovery time).

Outdated framework by Wing and Gould that characterises autistic traits as belonging to ‘three areas of impairment.’ The three areas are: social interaction, language, and stereotyped behaviour. This ‘triad’ completely ignores the significance of sensory experiences and for that reason alone is useless as a means of understanding the autistic experience.

Stimuli or situations that cause an intense negative reaction, often a state of overwhelm or distress, in neurodivergent individuals. These are highly individual but commonly include sensory overload, group socialising, pressure placed on organising and executing tasks, etc.