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Many people believe that autistic individuals lack empathy. This is not true. The reason this misconception never seems to get discarded may be due, in part, to its deep historical roots. Early descriptions of autism and autistic individuals, dating as far back as the 1930s, tended to emphasize the social and communication difficulties associated with the condition. This helped foster an assumption that autistic individuals lacked empathy. Even as recently as the early 2000s, research suggested …

Excerpts taken from full article originally featured in Teach Magazine. Consider this: You are driving in traffic, it starts raining, and you can barely see in front of you. Your music is blasting so you turn it down to focus on driving. Your brain can only process so much sensory input at a time. In this scenario, your visual and auditory sensory systems are overloaded so you eliminate one (auditory) to focus on the other. This is what it is like for someone with autism who has diffi …

Just like actions have equal and opposite reactions, social interactions have equal and appropriate reactions. When someone offers a greeting, such as “hello,” the expected response is a similar greeting, not to walk by without responding. Likewise, during a conversation, it is appropriate to pause and offer the other participant a chance to talk and not just continue talking forever. Many children seem to learn these unwritten rules by observation and through play. But not everyone …

This article was originally published on sociabilitybooks.com, written by Lou Knows What to Do Authors, Kimberly Tice and Venita Litvack. Like the rest of the world, we are obsessed with the new Avengers movie, Infinity War. The plot revolves around possession of extremely powerful gems called the infinity stones. For the folks reading who aren’t Marvel fans (Why aren’t you?), we will list the stones. They actually relate to some very important rules for promoting readi …