Today’s episode explores a personal narrative and critical analysis by Jaime Hoerricks, PhD, an autistic Gestalt Language Processor (GLP). Dr. Hoerricks recounts nine years of childhood sexual abuse and the subsequent systemic failures in recognising and validating her autistic communication style when she later sought help. She highlights how traditional safeguarding and therapeutic approaches, rooted in colonial whiteness and a chronology-first epistemology, misinterpret GLP communication—which relies on “whole scenes” and “scripts”—as incoherent or deceptive, thereby engineering disbelief and allowing harm to persist. She argues for GLP-literate interviewing, policy changes, and care routes that honor diverse communication forms to better protect vulnerable individuals, emphasising community solidarity as a crucial alternative to flawed institutional systems. Dr. Hoerricks also references a 2024 study by Dion et al. (2024) to underscore the pattern of autistic children, despite presenting with more risk factors, receiving less protective oversight.
Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/when-the-script-wont-come-autistic
Let me know what you think.
