00:00After I finished my examination, I stood up and I looked at him and I didn't know why I said it, but I said,
00:08I know you understand us very well. It is us who do not understand you.
00:15And he stood up and gave me a kiss.
00:17So I had this boy who was in my ward and when we were doing rounds, I came to him and he was really at his bed
00:26because he was attached to his fluid therapy and he was just gazing outside the window.
00:33So as I approached with my team and then we were, you know, my team started to present about him
00:41and this boy who comes with diarrhea, vomiting, he's autistic.
00:44Now all this time, he was just looking outside the window, not a blink of eye.
00:49So I went to the mom and I said, hi mom, I'm Dr. Zahila, as usual, so I'm going to examine him.
00:54And I also spoke to him, right? And the mom said, doctor, I am sorry.
00:57He will not be responding to you because he doesn't speak.
01:00And I said, it's okay. So I went on and examined him and whatnot.
01:04And then the mom at one point is like, doctor, maybe because I keep speaking to him.
01:09And then the mom said, doctor, I'm so sorry he's not responding to you.
01:13And I said, it's okay. I know he understands.
01:16And that was when the mom said, doctor, she got excited.
01:20Yes, he does understand Malay. He also understands English.
01:24And that was time, after I finished my examination, I stood up and I looked at him.
01:31And I didn't know why I said it, but I said, I know you understand us very well.
01:37It is us who do not understand you.
01:41And he stood up and gave me a kiss.
01:43And all those who are before that, he was just gazing outside the window, right?
01:48So that made me think, what if what we think we know about autism is fundamentally flawed, right?
01:58So that was when I went on to do my master's in autism, which isn't a medical pathway.
02:03And this is where I learned about neurodiversity and social justice movement and what exactly it's like to be autistic.
02:10Because we always see behaviors, right?
02:12And we judge them.
02:13We think that we can see autism because we see the behavior.
02:17And then sometimes you see kids because the idea is always about children.
02:20It's always about kids, you know, not having eye contact, kids who stims and, you know, kids who may be rolling on the floor.
02:27Tantrum, that kind of thing, right?
02:28You know, mentrum is always thought to be tantrum, yeah?
02:32And that's what we think we know.
02:36And therefore, what this realization coming from listening to participatory autism research,
02:44because we've always looked at research that is actually designed by neurotypical researchers, yeah?
02:50But this is led by autistic researchers, and it's different.
02:53It's different, yeah?
02:55And that's when I changed, and it continued to influence.
02:58How I work.
03:00So coming back to your question, neurodiversity is basically a natural variation of the human mind, right?
03:08There's no one way to think.
03:10There's no one way to be.
03:12We all process, you know, the world differently.
03:15If we can accept animals, there's so many kinds of animals.
03:18You're not going to say lion is better than a tiger, right?
03:20You're not going to say an orchid is better than a rose.
03:23But what is it when it comes to human?
03:25We think that there can only be one way.
03:28So in a nutshell.
03:29So in a nutshell.
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