Michelle: What if the most 'autistic' behaviors we see aren't autistic at all? What if they're just... human? Mark: Okay, that's a bold start. Michelle: And what if trying to 'fix' them is the very thing holding someone back? Today, we're exploring a book that turns our understanding of autism completely upside down. Mark: I'm intrigued. This feels like it's going to challenge a lot of what we think we know. Michelle: It absolutely does. The book is Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Dr. Barry Prizant. Mark: And Prizant isn't just any author. He's been a leading clinician and researcher in this field for over forty years. This book isn't a quick take; it's the culmination of a lifetime of work, and it actually won the Temple Grandin award from the Autism Society of America. Michelle: Exactly. He wrote it in 2015 to challenge the prevailing 'fix-it' model of his time, arguing for a more compassionate, human-centered approach. And that all starts with his most fundamental rule, which is less of a rule and more of a question.

Michelle: Prizant makes a truly provocative claim right at the start. He says there is no such thing as autistic behavior. Mark: Hold on, that sounds a bit extreme. We all know there are behaviors commonly associated with autism—hand-flapping, echolalia, lining up objects. How can he say they don't exist? Michelle: He's not saying the behaviors don't exist. He's saying our label for them is wrong. His point is that these are human behaviors. They are human responses to a world that feels chaotic, overwhelming, and deeply uncomfortable. The root cause, he argues, is often something he calls 'emotional dysregulation.' Mark: Emotional dysregulation. Can you break that down for us? What does that actually feel like or look like? Michelle: Imagine you're in a room where the lights are strobing, there are five different songs playing at once, and the air smells like burnt toast. You'd feel agitated, anxious, and unable to focus. You might pace, or cover your ears, or rock back and forth to calm yourself down. You're dysregulated. For many autistic people, the everyday world can feel like that. Their sensory systems are wired differently. So a behavior like rocking isn't a 'symptom of autism'; it's a perfectly logical strategy to self-soothe in a world that's screaming at you. Mark: That’s a great analogy. So the behavior isn't the problem; it's the solution to an invisible problem. Michelle: Precisely. And that's why his first principle is to always ask 'Why?' Why is this person doing this? What purpose does it serve for them? He tells this incredible story about a nine-year-old boy named Michael that just perfectly illustrates this. Mark: I’m ready. Let’s hear it. Michelle: So, Michael had a habit of fluttering his fingers right in front of his eyes. His parents, his teachers, everyone, saw it as a classic 'autistic behavior' and their goal was to stop it. They'd gently pull his hands down, redirect him, anything to make it go away. Michael also had a very close relationship with his grandfather, who sadly passed away. It was his first real experience with loss. Mark: Oh, that's tough for any kid. Michelle: In the days after, his parents tried to explain what happened. They told him his grandfather was in heaven, a wonderful place where he was happy. Michael listened quietly and then, after a long pause, he asked a question that floored everyone. He looked at his parents and said, "In heaven, are people allowed to look at their hands?" Mark: Wow. Just... wow. That gives me chills. Michelle: Right? In that one question, he revealed everything. That hand-fluttering wasn't a meaningless tic. It was a source of profound comfort, pleasure, and safety for him. It was something so precious that his biggest concern about the ultimate paradise was whether he'd be allowed to keep it. Mark: It completely reframes everything. They were trying to take away one of his greatest comforts, thinking they were 'helping' him. It wasn't a symptom to be extinguished; it was a part of his joy. Michelle: Exactly. And that's the power of asking 'Why?'. When we stop seeing behavior as a problem to be solved and start seeing it as a communication to be understood, the entire dynamic shifts. We move from being a corrector to being a partner.

Mark: Okay, so if these self-soothing behaviors are actually coping strategies, what about the other classic trait we hear about? The intense, laser-focused interests. The kid who knows every single dinosaur, or can recite every line from a movie, or is obsessed with train schedules. Are those just coping mechanisms too? Michelle: That's a perfect question, because Prizant takes that idea and elevates it. He says they can be for coping, but they're often much more. He suggests we stop using the word 'obsession,' which sounds pathological, and use a better word: 'enthusiasms.' Mark: I like that. 'Enthusiasm' has a completely different energy. It sounds like a passion, not a problem. Michelle: It is a passion! And Prizant argues that these enthusiasms are one of the most powerful, and most tragically overlooked, tools for helping an autistic person grow. The conventional wisdom is often to try and broaden the interest, to pull them away from the 'obsession.' Prizant says, 'No, lean in. Join them in it.' That enthusiasm is a bridge into their world. Mark: That’s a powerful idea. Can you give me a concrete example of how an 'enthusiasm' was used to help someone learn or connect? Michelle: There's a fantastic story in the book about a young man named Stanford James. From a young age, Stanford was absolutely captivated by the elevated trains in Chicago. He knew all the routes, all the schedules, all the stops. It was his thing. Many would have seen it as a restrictive, isolating interest. Mark: Right, something to be managed or redirected. Michelle: But his family and community didn't. They saw his passion. They nurtured it. As he got older, he mastered the entire Chicago transit system. So, what do you think happened? Mark: I'm hoping he got a job with the transit authority. Michelle: He landed a job with Chicago's Regional Transit Authority, helping customers at a service desk. People would come up, lost and confused, and Stanford, with his encyclopedic knowledge, could instantly tell them the exact route they needed. He was polite, he was thorough, and he was never, ever wrong. His supervisor said he was the perfect person for the job. And in his first year, they named him Employee of the Year. Mark: That's amazing. So his 'obsession' became his superpower. It wasn't a deficit; it was a highly specialized skill set. It also shows the importance of the community and employers 'getting it' too. Michelle: It's a perfect example. His enthusiasm gave him a sense of competence, a way to connect with people on his own terms, and a valued role in his community. His spirit was energized. Instead of trying to pull him out of his world, they found a way for his world to enrich ours.

Michelle: And this idea of people 'getting it' brings us to what might be Prizant's most profound and challenging concept. He suggests that at its core, autism can be understood as a disability of trust. Mark: A disability of trust? That's a heavy phrase. What does that mean? Trust in what? Michelle: Trust in almost everything. Prizant breaks it down into three areas. First, a lack of trust in your own body. Your senses might betray you—a light touch feels like a burn, a normal sound is deafening. Your body might make movements you can't control. You can't trust it to behave predictably. Mark: Okay, I can see how that would create constant anxiety. What's the second? Michelle: Trust in the world. For many of us, the world is predictable. The sun rises, the school bell rings at 9, the grocery store is where we left it. For an autistic person, any tiny change in that routine—a substitute teacher, a detour on the way to school—can feel like a fundamental violation of how the world is supposed to work. It becomes untrustworthy. Mark: And the third must be trust in people. Michelle: Exactly, and it's often the hardest. If you struggle to read social cues, to understand sarcasm, to predict what someone will do or say next, then other people become the most unpredictable and frightening part of the world. An autistic advocate named Michael John Carley put it perfectly: "The opposite of anxiety isn’t calm, it’s trust." Mark: Wow. "The opposite of anxiety isn't calm, it's trust." That really lands. It explains why control and routine are so important. They're not about being rigid; they're about trying to build a world you can actually trust. Michelle: You've got it. And when that trust is broken, the reaction can be extreme. Prizant tells a story from when he was a young camp counselor for kids with developmental disabilities. There was a twelve-year-old boy named Dennis, who had been looking forward to a trip to an amusement park for days. It was the only thing he talked about. Mark: Oh, I have a bad feeling about this. Michelle: They get on the bus, drive all the way there, and when they pull up... the park is closed. The bus driver, without thinking, just announces it over the loudspeaker. For Dennis, this wasn't just a disappointment. It was a profound betrayal. The world he had been promised, the world he trusted in, had vanished. He completely lost it. He started screaming and physically lashing out at Prizant, the person he trusted most. Mark: That's just devastating. It wasn't about the rides; it was a fundamental breach of trust. The world he was promised didn't exist. It makes you realize how much anxiety comes from that unpredictability. Michelle: It's a visceral example of what happens when the foundation of trust crumbles. Dennis wasn't being 'bad' or 'aggressive.' He was a terrified child whose world had just been proven to be a lie. Understanding that is the key to responding with compassion instead of punishment.

Mark: So, if you put it all together, it's a chain reaction. The world feels untrustworthy, which causes anxiety and emotional dysregulation. The behaviors we see are actually logical attempts to cope with that chaos. And the enthusiasms are these wonderful, self-made islands of predictability and joy. Is that the big picture? Michelle: That's exactly it. And the ultimate takeaway from Uniquely Human is that our job isn't to be a 'behavioral mechanic' trying to fix a broken machine. Our job is to be a 'trust builder.' It's about changing ourselves—our attitudes, our support, our willingness to listen—to make the world a more trustworthy, predictable, and safe place for them. When we do that, we don't just manage autism; we connect with a human being. Mark: It really makes you ask yourself: in any relationship, with anyone, am I acting like a mechanic or a trust builder? A powerful question for anyone to consider. Michelle: It really is. We'd love to hear what you think. What's one thing that shifted your perspective after hearing this? Find us on our socials and share your thoughts. We love building this community of learners with you. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.