You don't see thunder building till it cracks the sky

We have a new song out. It's called "The Quiet One," and I want to talk about why we made it, because the reason isn't really about music.

It's about a sentence I have heard, in various forms, more times than I can count: "He probably doesn't understand what we're saying."

Said about a kid. In front of the kid. By an adult who, generally speaking, meant no harm and would be horrified to know how that sentence sounds from the outside.

I'd like to retire that sentence. The song is just my attempt to do it with a beat behind it.

The thing about quiet

Here's something I've learned from years of running this community, and from raising a kid of my own who doesn't use speech to communicate: quiet gets misread constantly, and almost always in the same direction. People see quiet and assume absence. Not paying attention. Not following along. Not really there.

And then they have entire conversations about that person's limitations, in that person's presence, as if the room had a one-way mirror in it.

It doesn't. There's no mirror. There's just a person, listening to every word, forming opinions about the people forming opinions about them.

I think about this a lot. Probably more than is healthy. But it's hard not to, once you've watched it happen enough times to your own kid.

Presume competence

There's a phrase that gets used a lot in autism circles, and I want to spend a minute on it because I think it gets nodded at more than it gets practiced: presume competence.

It sounds simple. It sounds like common sense, even. But what it actually asks of you is harder than it sounds: walk into every interaction assuming the person in front of you understands more than they're able to show you in the moment. Talk to them, not about them. Wait for a response instead of deciding in advance what the response would be.

I've watched people do this with my son, and I've watched what happens next. It's not magic. It's not a movie moment. But something shifts. He's treated like someone who's in the conversation, because he is, and the people around him start acting like it too.

That's the whole ask. That's it. Presume competence isn't a slogan. It's a posture, and you can tell within about thirty seconds of meeting someone whether they've got it or not.

About the song

"The Quiet One" doesn't say the word "autism." On purpose. It's a hip-hop and country-soul track, which I realize is a combination that sounds like it was assembled by a committee with very different musical opinions, and somehow it works. Rap verses telling a story about being doubted and counted out, a chorus that comes in like it's been waiting its turn and finally gets the mic.

The line that anchors the whole thing: Don't you underestimate the quiet ones.

I didn't write that with my son specifically in mind. But I also didn't write it without him in mind, if that makes sense. He's in there. So is every nonspeaking person who's been talked over, talked down to, or talked about. So is every parent who's been handed a list of things their kid will never do and quietly filed it under "we'll see about that."

This is part of our music project here at Autisable, where we put out original songs built around the experiences of this community. Some directly. Some sideways. This one's sideways, and I think it lands harder for it.

You can find "The Quiet One" on Spotify, Apple Music, and everywhere else music lives. If it's useful to you, share it with someone. Especially if that someone is in the room with a person they think can't hear them.

They can.