What does autism look like?

J-Mac—aka Jason McElwain, the autistic teenager who, back in February, scored 20 points in the four minutes of a final regular season basketball game at Greece Athena High School—has received an ESPY award for “Best Sports Moment.”

Hats off to J-Mac, but is “that kid who won the ESPY” going to become what autism looks like to the general public?

“What autism looks like?” and “who can call themselves autistic?” have been questions that other autism bloggers have been raising.

• Dick at The Life That Chose Me: My life in a world of exceptionalities writes about What autism looks like: “If there is anything I’ve learned from being a parent and teacher, it is there is no comprehensive picture of what autism looks like.”
• Amanda at Ballastexistenz asks Who can call themselves autistic in noting that “autistics.org has put out an editorial on the letter A Danger In Speaking that was sent out by Tom McKean to various leaders in the autism community, urging them to get formal diagnoses to prove that people are autistic before they speak at conferences.”

The text of the autistics.org Editorial: Who Can Call Themselves Autistic? can be found here. The editorial ends by stating that “being autistic, rather than proving oneself to be autistic, should be all that is required to call oneself autistic.”

Indeed, no one asked J-Mac to show his medical records—-would he have won the ESPY—-would the media have made so much of those 20 baskets—–if he had not been autistic?

As for what I think autism looks like, autism is this.