Guest post by Kyler Shumway, MA. Co-host of You Belong, Love & Autism for teens! Unfurl a large blank scroll in your mind and stretch it across the table. This is your timeline, the story of your life. To your left, we see your birth. To the right, we see you, at...

The challenge isn’t just my internal narrative. In truth, I’m always afraid I will fail Love & Autism and to me Love & Autism has become one of the greatest loves of my life.

We must stand firm in our values and express them in our daily actions. This is the only way to ensure change.

I’m hopeful that these young people who have to spend their formidable years being doubted and demeaned will collectively and individually create sweeping changes.

There is the heart-swelling feeling of being part of a child’s development; watching them move through life. There is the comfort in our future in knowing that our world reaches our future generation. There is the earnest feeling of knowing that our work matters. There is nothing more important than connecting with a child.

Using arbitrary and limiting labels of high functioning and low functioning, with the intent to help one get a “better picture of the person with autism”, is not only insulting, but dehumanizing. Pathologizing reinforces a deficits view of autism. These labels serve no one. No human is all one thing. We each have good days and bad. We all have struggles and strengths.