Visibility in disability

*nods* You just said what both I and my parents have been saying for years.When I was growing up there was little to no awareness of autistic people and bullying was often written off as "just a part of growing up", " kids can be so cruel" and other patronizing garbage well known to people with disabilities everywhere.

In answer to your question "How would lower functioning autistic people know what to do?", I have some idea how that might play out--but I wanted to test them against other people first:see what you think. As a child I was on the borderline between moderate-severe--and as an adult I often fluctuate between the low end of moderate to mild depending on the stress level of that particular day. In my experience, lower functioning/more obviously disabled people seem to experience the two extremes in terms of bullying.

That is, upon recognizing a visible disability some people will be very kind. The difficulty is very visible and it can bring out a mothering response. Other times a very visible disability such as low functioning autism can bring out the predatory, bullying part of people for miles around.

Less visible people such as myself are less likely to be recognized as recipients of bullying--but that's another story. The point of the matter is, the visibility of our disabilities bring about different challenges *but*, we can use the visibility or lack thereof to our advantage to get along in life. Perhaps a plan that takes into account both that person's ability and plays into human nature would help.