This is an interview of @PinksMonkey regarding their Autism Acceptance Studio. It was featured in the intro section of the 2022 Scratch Conference. Esta es una entrevista a @PinksMonkey sobre su estudio Autism Acceptance Studio. Apareció en la introducción de la Conferencia Scratch 2022. ————————————————————— 7/19/24 - Thank you so much @Rhyolyte for loving and favoriting!
Credit to @PinksMonkey and @Rhyolyte! INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: Rhyolyte: There are thousands and thousands of inspiring studios. Let's talk about one. The Autism Acceptance Studio, created by PinksMonkey, encourages others to use art and storytelling to share their stories, while creating a safe community for folks to discuss their authentic selves and share questions through a Q&A format in the comments section. The studio is also aimed at educating others and dispelling misconceptions around autism. Let's hear directly from the creator of this awesome studio, PinksMonkey. PinksMonkey: The Autism Acceptance Studio is a place where everyone is welcome to discuss autism-related topics, come together and stand up against ableism, make projects about autism, and ask any questions they may have about autism, autistic traits and commonly co-occurring conditions like ADHD, anxiety, and sensory processing differences. Anyone is welcome to join, whether they're autistic or not, because it's an opportunity to learn more. I really just wanted to make it to help teach people about autism. So when I made it, I had been recently diagnosed and started to really get into online autistic communities. So I felt like I finally understood who I was and it explained everything about my life. So learning so much about autism before and after my diagnosis led to it becoming one of my biggest special interests currently, and I love talking about it and especially answering questions and helping others understand it. So I thought making an autism studio to promote acceptance, education, understanding, and anti-ableism would be perfect for me. And honestly, it's been a lot of fun. My favorite project right now would be my “I Am Autism” project. It's my version of a commercial made by Autism $peaks in 2009 which basically focused on making autism seem like a tragedy or some kind of monster that's trying to possess your children. But in my actually autistic version of the transcript, I took each line and tried to make it accurate from an autistic perspective, rather than from a neurotypical perspective like the original. I didn't make it entirely positive either because that's not realistic. All I did was make it true information and a balance of positive and negative things. So the project really shows that autism isn't bad, it just is. It's just a thing that exists with good and bad parts. I just really love that project because of everything it stands for. I think the thing I'm most proud of is like the little community I was able to get in the studio. There's so many other autistic people helping me answer questions and handle everything when I'm offline, and there's just so much support from everyone and they're such just great people. And I think the reach of the studio has also been super good. There are plenty of allistic, or non-autistic, people in it as well who are willing to listen and learn about autism from us, and they really try to understand experiences that they don't personally have. I appreciate all the autistics and allies in the studio and they've been such great friends. So I'm just excited about being able to educate so many different people about autism and help spread acceptance on Scratch. Rhyolyte: So inspiring. Thank you to PinksMonkey and everyone who contributed to this amazing Scratch studio.
