Autism is Normal

When you sit down with a Bangladeshi parent to discuss their child, you are almost always having two conversations at once. The first is about the child: their classroom focus, sensory triggers, and daily routines. The second conversation is often unspoken, but it fills the whole room. It’s the anxious question behind every hesitant look we know all too well: Manush ki bolbe?

I got into this field because I genuinely thought I could help dismantle that fear. That belief was the reason why I got a degree in psychology. I figured that if I understood the science of human development and cognition, I could easily bridge the gap between clinical facts and cultural misconceptions. 

However, supporting children in school settings gave me a quick reality check. Whether I am sitting beside a student trying to help them navigate a noisy classroom or attending a support meeting with their family, having a degree only gives me theory. It does not undo decades of inherited stigma. More often than not, I end up feeling like my hands are tied. 

You can have all the scientific evidence in the world about how a child’s brain works, yet still feel powerless against a family’s deep-seated fear of social exile. You quickly learn you cannot simply logic someone out of a fear that is rooted in community judgement.

That frustration is especially tough because the barrier with Bangladeshi parents is rarely a lack of love. The affection and protectiveness are real. The problem is what the word autism represents in our community. To many parents, hearing that word does not feel like a helpful answe. It feels like a verdict, a tragedy, or a personal failure that reflects on the entire family line.

A lot of this comes down to language. Terms like sensory processing or neurodevelopment do not translate cleanly into Bangla (or even my own mother tongue, Sylheti). When medical concepts pass through a cultural filter, they usually get flattened into broad, harsh ideas of illness or deficiency. A parent does not hear that their child processes noise or social interaction differently. They hear that their child will be excluded, gossiped about at family gatherings, and left without their idea of a ‘normal’ future.

When fear takes over, parents often push their children to adapt by any means necessary, which usually leads to masking. In plain terms, masking is what happens when a child with autism spends immense energy suppressing their natural instincts just to blend in and appear ‘normal.’ It looks like forcing themselves to make eye contact even when it feels uncomfortable, holding back physical movements like flapping or rocking that actually help them self-regulate, or staying completely still in a sensory environment that hurts their ears or eyes. 

To an outsider or a relative, a masking child might look well-behaved, but internally, they are mentally and physically exhausted. By the time that child gets home to a safe space, that pent-up tension often explodes into severe meltdowns or deep withdrawal, simply because they have run out of energy to keep up the mask.

Changing the Mindset

If we want to change this mindset, we have to stop relying on heavy clinical jargon and euphemisms, and talk about neurodiversity plainly. Autism is not a disease to be cured, and it is not a tragedy. It is just a natural variation in how human brains are wired. It is a lot like being left-handed in a world built for right-handed people. Giving a child sensory tools, quiet breaks, or a predictable routine is not about fixing something that is broken. It is no different from handing a pair of glasses to a kid who needs them to read the board.

Normalising neurodivergence in a Bangladeshi context requires taking the conversation out of formal rooms and bringing it into everyday life. In our culture, family structure is dense and interconnected. A child is rarely raised in isolation; grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends all hold opinionated real estate in a household’s decisions. That means changing a child’s reality requires changing how the wider family talks. 

When a child experiences sensory overload at a family event, the response cannot be hidden embarrassment or scolding. It starts with parents firmly setting boundaries with relatives, explaining clearly what sensory overload is, and refusing to apologise for their child’s needs.

We also need to replace the secrecy around a diagnosis with casual, confident visibility. In many Bangladeshi households, anything related to developmental differences is kept under wraps, which only reinforces the idea that it is something shameful. When parents speak openly about their child’s neurodivergent traits without lowering their voice or sounding defensive, it strips the topic of its shock value.

If an aunt asks why a child is wearing noise-cancelling headphones or avoiding eye contact, answering plainly instead of making excuses normalises the behaviour for everyone in the room. In South Asian communities, extra support is often viewed as a crutch that makes a child weak or dependent. Accommodations don’t get in the way of independence; they’re actually what makes it possible in the first place.

Schools in Bangladesh also play a major role in this normalisation process. Historically, educational systems in the region have leaned heavily toward rigid academic performance, where any child who learns differently is either pressured to conform or quietly pushed to the margins. To normalise neurodivergence, mainstream schools need to stop treating inclusive support as an afterthought or a special favour. This means training teachers to recognise sensory overload and learning differences instead of misinterpreting them as bad behaviour or stubbornness. 

 Simple structural changes, like offering quiet corners in classrooms, allowing fidget tools during lessons, and reducing unnecessary noise, teach neurotypical students from a young age that people process the world in different ways. When schools embrace these adjustments openly, it sends a powerful message to parents that having a child with autism is not a secret to hide from the school administration, but an aspect of development that the school is fully equipped to support.

Unlearning generations of inherited fear is inherently messy, uncomfortable, and frequently exhausting. There are days when the cultural inertia feels overwhelming, and sitting in these rooms with your hands tied feels like an impossible weight. But staying quiet only allows community gossip to keep dictating which children get to thrive and which are forced to mask until they break. 

We will not dismantle manush ki bolbe overnight, nor will our schools and households transform in a single generation. But every time a parent stands firm against a relative’s judgement, every time a classroom makes space for a child to simply exist as they are, the grip of that stigma loosens just a fraction. Autism is normal, and even when the work feels frustratingly slow, it is still a message worth pushing for.

Faeeja Humaira Meem currently works for children’s mental health in Scotland.