An Autistic Self-Advocate's Perspective: Functional Is the Goal

Inside a respected clinic's parent packet — alongside diagnostic criteria and therapy classifications — sits something less common: an essay written by an autistic adult, addressed directly to parents of autistic children. Its points come up again and again in autistic self-advocacy, and they're worth reading before (and after) any therapy decision.

Don't try to make us "normal"

The essay's central request: the goal of any intervention should be a functional, contented life — communication, self-care, learning, relationships, safety — not a child who passes for typical.

• Functional is the goal. Skills that make daily life work (asking for help, coping with noise, getting dressed, saying what you need) matter more than looking neurotypical while doing them.
• Stimming and other autistic traits are not the enemy. Some behaviors that look odd are self-regulation. Suppressing them for appearances has costs; teaching alternatives where genuinely needed is different from training a child to hide who they are.

Masking is not recovery

The essay's most-quoted warning for parents: a child who appears "normal" is not a child who is "cured." The more typical an autistic person's outside behavior looks, the harder they may be working to hold it there — constant, intense, exhausting effort that observers never see. That hidden labor, often called masking, is increasingly linked in community and research discussion to anxiety, burnout, and depression.

So when evaluating progress, look past surface behavior:

• Is my child comfortable, or just compliant?
• Can they do more for themselves, or only perform more for others?
• Do they seem more content and less anxious — or more tense?

Don't wait until we're "recovered" to love and accept us

The closing request cuts to the heart of it: children need to feel loved and accepted as they are now — not held to a future version of themselves that finishes some program or crosses some "recovered" line. Acceptance and intervention aren't opposites: you can work on skills and celebrate the child in front of you, today.

How to use this perspective

This site presents it alongside — not instead of — the clinical evidence. You'll find it reflected in the contested-topic notes on the ABA page and the biomedical workbook page: build skills, monitor real wellbeing, and be suspicious of any program whose success metric is "indistinguishable from peers" rather than your child's actual function and happiness.

This page is parent-compiled information, not medical advice.

Sources

• Jennifer McIlwee Myers, Some Extremely Reasonable Suggestions…, appendix essay in the CDRC Autism Family Guide (Child Development & Rehabilitation Center, Portland, OR).