Too Autistic to Listen to, or Not Autistic Enough to Count?

I read this post about how autistic adults are being dismissed from Un-Boxed Brain and it made me think of a pattern that a friend of mine (who is an autistic adult) pointed out a while ago. When autistic adults talk about their experiences and especially when they tell non-autistic parents of autistic children about their own childhoods, they are often dismissed as impertinent. Either they are considered to be too autistic and not knowing what was good for them when they were kids, or they are told that they are not autistic enough to be able to understand all the difficulties that the so-called very autistic children and their parents experience. This pattern is very ableist in many ways and it makes me very sad to see it.

This is also one of the reasons why I don’t know if I will ever be open to my child’s teachers about me being autistic. Because I see this pattern also when autistic adults try to communicate with teachers (on Twitter and blogs) to give some insight about what school can be like for an autistic child or teenager. Mostly, I see teachers claiming that the autistic adult cannot possibly understand enough about what school’s supposed to be like and what will happen if my child’s teachers dismiss me in the same way? I’m sure it won’t benefit my kid.