ALT An autistic kid waves her hands around enthusiastically. "Hi! I'm Mia and I'm autistic! It means sometimes I find talking and language difficult, even though I'm really good at writing my own songs. But sometimes neurotypical people aren't so good at this kinda stuff either. and it means they can make some misconceptions about me. That's why I want to explain what 'autism spectrum' actually means."

ALT Mia points to a long line that is going from light to dark colours. On the light side it says 'not autistic'. On the dark side it says 'very autistic'. She says, "Sometimes when people think of the word autism spectrum they think of something like this. A very linear looking spectrum which suggests that people range from being 'a little autistic' to 'very autistic'. Mia holds up a doodle of herself, half of her is coloured in blue, the blue part is labelled 'not autistic'. "...Huh. I don't get it. If I'm 'a little autistic' which part of me would that be? My feet? My eyes? I don't think that's how autism works!

ALT A big hand picks up Mia and places her onto the long line. Mia says, "the problem with thinking of the spectrum in this way is that a perception of an autistic person becomes linear too." The hand says: "you're only a little autistic, Mia." Mia replies, "uuuh, c-could you elaborate please?" The hand replies, "you're able to explain yourself pretty well and you act mostly normal. You're not severely autistic." Mia is pushed by the giant hand into a chaotic looking mess of scary situations that would bother many autistic people, such as new situations or being told to not stim. Mia says, "but you see, when someone thinks you're only a little autistic, this can happen!" The hand says "Mia, you can handle all these situations just fine, since you're not that autistic."

ALT Mia starts getting really stressed out by all these stressful situations! Some people from the outside look on and make judgements: "How can you be tired? Everyone does this every day, you're just being lazy." "Wow you're being so dramatic! Get over it!"