3

The autistic community is seven times more likely to interact with law enforcement than someone who is not a part of the community. When the autistic community does interact with police they are likely to face brutality. (Meet The Police | National Autism Association, n.d.). This brutality that the autistic community often faces is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of observable behaviors. What behaviors are often misunderstood include behaviors such as ignoring commands, waving their arms, pacing, etc. The misunderstanding of these behaviors results in excessive use of force because the interpretations have assumed things like noncompliance, or threat. We can change these ambiguous perceptions through the use of language.

Changing perceptions is hard, especially when the perceptions are deeply ingrained and pervasive. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder that is characterized across three domains. The domains are stereotypic/ rigid patterns of behavior, deficits in social interaction, and deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication. Deficits in social interaction may appear as a lack of interest in engaging in social interactions, or not responding to their name when called. Stereotypic behavior is any self-stimulating behavior that is automatically reinforced. What this may look like is flapping hands, clenching fists, waving objects in front of their eyes, repeating phrases/sounds. Rigid patterns of behavior examples look like insistence on a particular route to the store, becoming upset if someone is late because of the lack of adherence to a schedule, needing to complete a task before another individual. Finally, deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication may look like using an AAC (augmentative and alternative communication device), having limited vocal speech (as opposed to using for example ASL), not responding to gestures, or a lack of facial expression (Beuker et al., 2013). A fundamental understanding of these behaviors is important for improving interactions.

Why an understanding of these behaviors is important is that if these behaviors are not understood they could be misinterpreted as another behavior. For example, you are presented with someone who is non-vocal (does not communicate with spoken words) and additionally has deficits in responding to someone when they are being spoken to. This may be interpreted as noncompliance or defiant behavior. While being defiant or non-compliant is not a justification for brutality, the way biases play into the ways in which officers are trained contributes to this behavior being seen as a threat. When the police perceive the behavior as a threat and de-escalation procedures are not taken, the result can be psychological or bodily harm to a member of the autistic community.

The role we play in trying to break up this pattern of abuse is using what we know about the power of language, specifically metaphors to change our behavior. I can say to you that the brain is a muscle and to improve the skills we have to keep practicing at it. In describing it in that way “can encourage [individuals} to adopt an incremental, rather than fixed, theory of intelligence. In turn, an incremental theory of intelligence leads students to be more committed to their learning goals and persistent in the face of adversity” (Thibodeau et al., 2017). Meaning that with something as simple as framing the brain in a way that fosters growth, your perseverance around behavioral changes could be more effective. This works because you are using metaphors to guide a process known as spreading activation. What spreading activation is is a process where word associations are made based on information from your individual knowledge bases. How metaphors help is as said to guide or to frame that process. When helping orient police officers to best practices for interacting with autistic youth, could a well-placed metaphor help reduce the likelihood that they might react to the child with aggression? It very well could, and that process starts with re-framing differences in cognitive processes as good and valid. It can be as simple as using travel as a model. This looks like, some brains may put their desired location into a GPS and be on their way and arrive expectedly at their location with no deviation. Another set of brains may put the location into the GPS but decide to take a more scenic route and use the GPS as desired. Or, other brains may turn off the GPS completely and make their own course for arriving at the destination,  most importantly, all groups arrive at the same destination eventually. What this demonstrates very loosely is that we can acknowledge differences in cognitive processes and accommodate them without enforcing a hierarchy. Sticking with the travel example, if you are someone who has your GPS set and you want to ride the route straight through with no deviation, how do you plan a trip with someone who is ready to shut the GPS off and get there when you get there. Here is where you would utilize tools that are at your disposal to determine where compromise is possible and what prior knowledge is involved if the individual informs the behavior. How important is it that we don’t make extra stops, why? Does it come from money struggles, or is there a reason we need to be at that location by a certain time, or does a person struggle with driving at night for a variety of reasons? Now, this is not to say in interactions with police, the autistic community needs to compromise, but that police need to be aware that there are different processes, and how these different processes look. In using metaphors like above I am framing the associations that you make about autistic individuals and even disability altogether. I am guiding you to think of symptoms of disorders like autism not as bad or lesser or dangerous but through education, you begin to associate it with simply different. These differences then lend themselves to conversations more largely or in the moment to react differently than before had you just assumed noncompliance or threat.

The goal of the present project is to provide officers with a set of tools and guidelines that can help them interact appropriately with autistic youth. . As described, metaphors are one way to do this, but there are ways in which the effectiveness is impacted. One of the main factors for determining effectiveness is how much prior knowledge an officer has on autism. Additionally,  if an officer interacts with an autistic person how strong is the belief that their stereotypy is a display of aggression or is a threat. The stronger the current belief is, the harder it will be to disrupt perceptions. However, even strong beliefs can be weakened. Other factors include knowledge of the mode by which the information is being presented. In my basic example of travel, if you had no conception of a GPS or the impact that can have to travel, or of driving and what is involved, the metaphor will likely not work. In this case, too little information or not enough information can be addressed but educating these officers on what autism spectrum disorder is and how it may manifest. Controlling what information the officers have about ASD will increase the likelihood of success with metaphorical use.

In changing perceptions I will focus on how this process works. As mentioned previously, the behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder are often perceived as threatening or noncompliant. In shaping this idea to a more actual perspective I will be addressing the behaviors themselves and framing them as what they are, simply behaviors. While it is important to understand the function these behaviors serve the individual it is more important and easier to explain to officers how these behaviors are separate from their involvement and not an inherent reaction to their involvement. For example, let’s take unresponsiveness as a behavior. If you are confronting someone because you have been called to find this individual and in addressing them you are ignored. The first thing to understand is that ignored is a label that you are attaching to the behavior. If an individual is not responding to you, it could be because they may not have the language to address you back, they are deaf/hard of hearing, they didn’t hear you, they didn’t recognize they were being addressed, they may have a receptive language disorder, they may be overstimulated and may not be processing all of the sounds around them, and many other reasons. I believe that in explaining behaviors in this way it is important for framing how you should initiate interactions with anyone that there is potential for misunderstanding. With that being said, I think that the role that your own behaviors play in the interaction should be considered as well. This requires a focus on understanding the role tone, volume, and specific language used impact interactions.

Improving the outcomes of interactions between the police and the autistic community starts with familiarity with the community and a commitment to understanding reactions that individuals may have to their presence. Addressing interactions in this way not only can improve interactions for the autistic community but for overlapping identities that can and do come into play. This includes differences in race, gender, and age among others. A commitment to unlearning our biases and actively working against them can improve interactions for all.