I was nearing the end of my clinical fellowship, and my autistic 6-year-old client bolted right towards the fish tank. He submerged his hand to grab the fish before I could block him, and the fish tank water soaked all the way to his pants. I firmly grabbed his wrist and pulled it out. Once he appeared to settle, I briefly stepped away only for him to submerge his hand once again grasping for that fish. Then I looked at his expression.
This child’s eyes were sunken and swirling. His body was rigid. I realized he wasn’t scared of what I might do—he was scared of what he might do. He was scared of himself. He didn’t want to be doing this.
“Oh my god,” I thought. “What if this whole thing was an accident?”
I gently guided him to the bathroom where I would wash the fish tank water from his clothes. I only noticed the rigidity of my own body during that walk there.
I’ve had my fair share of accidents over the years, my body going rigid with each one. I say “accidents” because they feel like accidents, akin to dropping a plate or bumping your knee. And just like those accidents, there are gradients to awareness and control of these. Here’s some examples of them:
There was the time a peer directed verbally hostility at me by saying “Who do you think you are, my mom?” I was suddenly terrified, and I responded with script after script as if I was 90s sitcom mother—the bossiest most “mother” response ever and the tone and mannerisms and facial expressions. It was a full-body gestalt. I didn’t know why it was happening, couldn’t control it, and was mortified. My teacher later held a meeting with my mom to discuss my “mocking” of peers.
There was the time in middle school a frenemy had bullied me for weeks, then out-of-the-blue during lunch she was kind. She laughed, and I saw my hand flat in the air fall an inch away from her face. When my brain caught up, I realized that it was because few seconds prior I was about to slap her. We didn’t ever acknowledge it.
Just three years ago I was anxious and exhausted at a Hanukah party, fearful of bringing up my healing professional bitterness I held over the past year. At the drink table I met someone new named Patrick, and I accidentally repeated back “My name is Patrick.” It was awkward, but nothing more. Later in the night I talked to a friend I hadn’t seen since college, and I aimed to reestablish that friendship. He told me his aunt was a speech-language pathologist, and I was authentically happy. My mouth said I hated SLPs, a ruminant of my once bitterness. This accident took over a year to repair, but it was possible because he gave me the benefit-of-the-doubt.
Early on in my life the accidents resulted in the worst of the worst.
When I was in first grade the assignment was too hard, or I couldn’t talk to the kids talking to me, or I talked, but it was not from my head. I cried, and no adults consoled me. I grew scared of crying in class, and crying in class became its own self-reinforcing trigger. By the time January came, I never remembered what my body did—and still don’t—but I figured it must have been really really bad. Now an adult was pinning me down and back or placing me alone in a small area.
As a kid with my kid-logic, I justified it by assuming I must have accidentally killed the fish, and that guilt hung with me until very recently. Today I understand that a vicious cycle of fear of both myself, my body, and the fish tank formed, and that was exactly the trigger for years to come.
In my clinical and advocacy work, I see little critical reflection of autistic intent from autism professionals. What if we are interpreting an autistic person's actions as evidence of intent when we haven't actually established what that person intended? These kids can display frantic laughter, running around the playground trying to kiss peers, repeatedly knocking over the same item, a sudden hitting a peer, increasingly dysregulated repetition of a word, and other common autistic behaviors—but what if they don’t want to be doing all this?
Continued misunderstanding of intentional vs unintentional actions means peers, autism professionals, and oneself might respond inappropriately. And at the very worst, it opens up the opportunity for autism professionals to respond with extreme forms of behavioral management. With these statistics (McDonnel et. al, 2018) and these local statistics (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2026), I am not exaggerating. A fearfully driven vicious cycle of accidental actions and grotesque responses can potentially thrive for years to come.
The consideration and integration that some autistic behaviors might be accidents can be a slippery slope when it comes to professional practice. It opens up the dreaded possibility that we can’t always trust observable autistic actions at face value. In that case, at least we’d all know what it’s like to panic and dunk our hands in a fish tank, grasp for a fish, and be frightened by one’s own past and current actions being the opposite of our intentions.
The next step? Put aside that fear. Allow oneself to be led to the bathroom by some emerging open-mindedness, curiosity, and humility when it comes to interpretation of autistic actions.
Then wash that fish tank water away to the extent you can, and look for a new pair of clothes.
References
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2026). 2024–25 student restraints report – All schools. https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/restraints.aspx
McDonnell, C. G., Boan, A. D., Bradley, C. C., Seay, K. D., Charles, J. M., & Carpenter, L. A. (2019). Child maltreatment in autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability: Results from a population‐based sample. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 60(5), 576-584.
