The Young Autistic Adult Squad (#YAAS) are adults under 40 volunteering to share their perspectives, strategies, and lived experiences growing up autistic.
🙏🏽 Need Advice?
Whether you’ve recently realized you are (or might be) autistic or have sought out a formal diagnosis–at whatever age you may be–you probably have questions.
Who better to share their strategies and life hacks that your very own community?
How to use the hashtag
- Post any question you have about anything at all related to your neurodivergent life. Include both hashtags: #YAAS and #ActuallyAutistic and your question will surface in the BlueSky Feed.
- Volunteer mentors — all of whom are under 40 — will come to your aid.
That’s it!
🫶🏽 Want to be a mentor?
Want to offer a bit of kindness and support to strangers on the Internet?
Whenever you’re feeling generous:
- Check the BlueSky Feed for questions.
- Browse for posts that feel relatable.
- Comment on the person’s post or DM if they’re open to that.
Help out when you can. Take a break at any time, short or extended. This is #MutualAid in action. You make it work by sharing yourself with those who could use a helping hand and are asking for support.
Ask #YAAS
The volunteer Young Autistic Adult Squad is waiting to glow up your life.
Ask for support by posting the
#YAAS + #ActuallyAutistic hashtags together
with your question.
Want to pay it forward?
Pin the #YAAS BlueSky Feed and share your wisdom!
Use of the #YAAS hashtag is entirely voluntary and intended only as a suggestion for connecting on social media. Autastic is not responsible for any advice shared, interactions, or conduct of individuals choosing to participate or connect using this hashtag. Participants engage at their own discretion and risk.
Consider Your Place In History
When autism was first included in the DSM in 1980, it laid the foundation for future generations of people to be formally identified as autistic (those who had reliable access anyway).
Previously, parents, teachers, and other caretakers had no formal, common language nor accessible information about the minority of people who were so clearly different than most (nor for those who slid by unseen). For all its controversy, inclusion of autism in the DSM was the beginning of much needed light being shone in the darkness.
After 1980, children who were identified as autistic early in life grew up with an awareness of their differences that was unavailable to the generations before them.
Identification may not have yielded ideal outcomes (and in many cases was harmful and/or fatal) but identification allowed families, institutions, and autistic people themselves to realize that autistic people aren’t the same as allistic (non-autistic) people. That was a problematic yet valuable societal change.
Those children are now adults and they have tools, coping strategies, and perspectives that could greatly benefit the community at large. Enter the #YAAS hashtag. When combined with #ActuallyAutistic, a vital multi-perspective conversation is born!
The #AutisticElders Advice Line
Looking for mentors who’ve earned their wisdom over decades? #AutisticElders are standing by for you.
Learn more
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