There's a misperception that autism is some thief in the night that takes a normal child and places an autistic child in its place. That's not true. - Ari Ne'eman

You come out of a meeting and you've put on a mask, which involves looking people in the eye, using certain mannerisms, certain phrases. Even if you learn to do it in a very seamless sort of way, you're still putting on an act. It's a very ex-hausting act.

Autism is a disability insofar as we’re disabled by society. A society that is often very hostile to our ways of communicating, to our ways of being that often is structured in such a way that makes it difficult for us to access places of public accommodation and services and countless other things. It creates an education system where autistic people are often abused and do not have our communication and other needs met.

In America we've spent over a billion dollars on autism research. What have we got for that? We've not seen anything that's appreciably impacted the quality of life of autistic people, regardless of their place on the spectrum. Quite frankly, we've spent $1bn figuring out how to make mice autistic and we'll spend another $1bn figuring out how to make them not autistic. And that's not what the average person wakes up in the morning aspiring to. They think: am I going to be able to find a job, to communicate, to live independently, either on my own or with support? Those are the real priorities.