I need your opinion on something #ActuallyAutistic comrades. I hold weekly free discussion circles about a number of topics. A NT professional working with autistic people has asked me to join in order to "observe" how I work before they can refer those that they work with to my groups.
Is this a reasonable ask? Is this ableist? While I do appreciate that fact that people shouldn't recommend things that they haven't tried, I also find it problematic for someone who isn't autistic to question the style of how an autistic person works. But I'm not sure. What do you guys think?
@theautisticcoach @actuallyautistic As a compromise, do you have any recordings you could share instead? You'd have to get consent from everyone present but I'd think you'd need to do that anyway. My concern would be how people in the group would feel being observed by an NT stranger and if that would keep people from feeling able to share. I see a lot of NT's kind of start to take over in autistic spaces so I would perhaps mute them.
@Pawpower Another option might be to talk to one of your groups and see if there is a subset that might be willing to meet with this person as a special event type of thing.
Maybe that way you could have a group that is prepared for the different feelings and the group has some cohesion and also can as a group handle the dysregulation that likely would result.
That way this person can see some real interaction but have it a be a more intentionally planned group.
