Feeling comfortable advocating for yourself can make you more confident and able to handle life's challenges. Learning how to share your needs and ask for accommodations can help you succeed. This will also help you avoid people bullying or taking advantage of you.

We offer strategies and tips here along with skills to work on so you can think about what you already know how to do and what you need to develop. Consider what you need help with to advocate for yourself at work or with friends or family in an appropriate way.

Knowing how to express yourself, what you want and to explain the accommodations you need takes time and practice. Yet you want to be polite and respectful, and understand the rules and culture of your workplace and other environments. If you feel you are being treated unfairly, learn what the procedures are to get help and talk to a trusted family member, friend or therapist for advice.

Whereever you live, you may need to advocate for your needs and preferences while being considerate of the people you live with and their needs. It may be saying what activities you'd like to do or food you prefer to eat. If you go to a day program or live in a group home, it may mean sharing what you prefer to have for your meal or that you'd like to go to the movies.

The Employment and Housing sections of the Milestones Autism Planning (MAP) Tool have further information.

It takes time and practice to develop these skills. The best way is to pick one or two skills to discuss with your family, therapist, counselor or developmental disabilities agency advisor.

Self-Advocacy Skills to Learn and Practice

Here are key skills to work on over time with someone you trust. Pick one or two at a time.

• Learning how to ask for help from the right person when you don’t understand something. You can make a chart for who to ask for help for work, home, school, or other specific issues.
• Practice expressing your needs, strengths, challenges and goals with your boss or people you work with. Identify the right person to go to and then make a goal to share your needs and an issue you’re dealing with 1 or 2 people.
• Understand your unique sensory issues and needs. It’s common for autistic people to be over or under sensitive to sounds, lights, smells and tastes. Make a plan to share your top 2 or 3 sensory needs with 1 or 2 people who could help, such as family, therapist, other self-advocates or human resources at work. This Managing Sensory Issues article in the MAP written by two self-advocates may be helpful.
• Sense you may be headed for a meltdown. Try a self-calming strategy which could include going to a quiet place away from what is overwhelming you (letting the people you are with know you are leaving). This 5 Point Scale is a tool you can use working with your therapist, family, disability provider, etc.
• Participate in your medical appointments. This AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit for Patients and Supporters offers useful tips, forms and worksheets, including accommodations you can ask for in a healthcare setting.

Dealing with the Unexpected in Life

Often in life, things go wrong, things break, or other unexpected things happen. You can run into legal or financial challenges, It can be confusing how to get something to work like a new product or system like heating/air conditioner.

These bad, unexpected things happen to everyone. It’s hard to know what to do or who to call or online chat with to fix a lot of these problems. Most people will need an advocate, a knowledgeable family member or friend, or a professional to help them through.

Asking for help is the more responsible thing you can do as an adult. Ignoring one of these problems, while tempting, will not make it go away. Instead it will usually make it worse. If you don’t pay your taxes you get taken to court. If you get a speeding ticket and ignore it your fines increase and the police can arrest you. If you ignore a call for jury duty they can arrest you. If you don’t pay your bills you can run up big interest fees and penalties.

It's important to know when to ask for for help, learn who the right person is who could help, and find out what accommodations you need to get through whatever difficult thing you are experiencing.

The Milestones free autism Helpdesk is here to support you and connect you with resources and information.