Speaking with Salon last month, autistic comedian Fern Brady decided to put neurotypicals on blast.
For the uninitiated: A neurotypical is a person who does not display autistic or other neurologically atypical behaviors. Traditionally, when commentary is made about autism, neurotypicals are the humorists, and neurodivergent people (those on the autism spectrum) are the targets. Yet Brady upended that dynamic by commenting, "This is most autistic people's experience: In jobs or in in group settings, they'll say their own thing and they don't know why everyone's offended at what they've said." Autistic people are so frequently misunderstood and excluded by neurotypicals that, both figuratively and literally, "autistic kids are like the one person in their class to not be invited to a birthday party, and then people wonder why the suicide rate for autistic people is so sky high."
