Autistic Inclusion and Intersectionality, in School and Communities with Dr. Prithvi Perepa

Ian and Dr. Prithvi Perepa, (Associate Professor in Autism Studies within the Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs at the University of Birmingham and a member of the Autism Center for Education Research [ACER]) talk about autistic inclusion in communities. They discuss inclusion and true belonging in academic and faith settings, as well as the intersection of various minority and marginalized identities with autism.

The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/58560f6d/transcript.txt

If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, email us at [e-mail] or find us on twitter @autismtheology.

This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.

Website: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/cat

The artwork for this podcast uses the Centre for Autism and Theology Logo, created by Holly Russel 

Creators & Guests

Host

Ian Lasch

PhD candidate at the university of Aberdeen researching autism and the Imago Dei

What is Autism and Theology Podcast?

The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.

Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!

We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.

Ian Prithvi inclusion
Zoe: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Autism and Theology podcast, brought to you by the Center for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.
Ian: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology podcast. I'm Ian, and I'm so happy that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, sharing relevant resources and promoting ways that help faith and non-faith communities enable autistic people to flourish.
This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Center for Autism and Theology, which we've [00:01:00] shortened to CAT. If you would like to access the transcript for this episode, it can be found via the link in the show notes. Today we have with us Prithvi Perepa, who is, Prithvi is an Associate Professor in Autism Studies within the Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs at the University of Birmingham and a member of the Autism Center for Education Research, ACER.
Prithvi, we are so glad to have you with us this morning, this, today, this afternoon for you. Thank you, Ian
Prithvi: Thank you, Ian . Good morning is fine, too. It is good morning for you. Absolutely fine. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to join for this podcast.
Ian: Now, I know that a lot of your work has to do with autism and inclusion in educational settings specifically. Are you able to, would you mind summarizing your areas of emphasis just for our listeners who may not be familiar with your research?
Prithvi: Sure. Yeah. So as you say, I think I'm, I'm coming from a school of education, [00:02:00] which is where I'm based and I was trained as a teacher too. So that's, that's, that's kind of my professional background is very much coming from there.
But I have worked with charities, which means that I've looked at kind of a broader aspects around, inclusion in a broader context rather than just in a very educational context, but you're right that most of my research has looked specifically around how do schools engage with children, young people on the autistic spectrum and what are the barriers in terms of inclusion.
So we did a recent project looking specifically around exclusion and marg—kind of educational experience of families whom we call broadly ‘marginalized’ in the UK and part of the dynamics or aspects we found in our research around exclusion was that factor, a range of marginalized factors, what increasingly we call as ‘intersectionality’ have an impact in terms of access to education for young people on the autistic [00:03:00] spectrum.
So in the UK, it was factors such as obviously autism itself leads to more exclusion from educational context. But along with that, it seems to be boys are more likely to be excluded than girls. And also it seems to be that children who belong to minority ethnic groups, certain minority ethnic groups are more likely to be excluded, and children who belong to lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
So it looks like what is happening, and some researchers have written quite a bit about this, is that education as it is, seems to meet the needs of certain groups of people and is exclusive for others, which makes it actually difficult, and the current trend still is that put the blame on the individual. It's the individual who needs to fit into the educational context, even though we've been talking about inclusion for what, 30, 40 years now. But the mentality still is that the student has to fit into the [00:04:00] school rather than the school actually looking at changing their own practice.
Not that I'm saying everybody's not doing it, but we found that there was a mismatch and even professionals working in the schools, teachers who didn't really understand some of the legislation we have in the UK about disability and access, so some of the teachers were saying to us, well, like they didn't realize that what they were doing was actually illegal when they ask students not to come, because they do not have staff or because they think the child cannot cope with the outing or something that, legally, in the UK are not allowed to do that, but that because that is considered as indirect discrimination and they just were not aware of that. So there seem to be lack of professional knowledge, too, in terms of how do we actually look at inclusion in a very broad sense?
Ian: Sure, and I come from an American context, obviously, where the laws are different, but a lot of those patterns still emerge
Prithvi: Indeed.
Ian: in that [00:05:00] my son is autistic as well.
We, we encountered some of the same opposition: people not really aware of the law.
Prithvi: Yeah.
Ian: And you get it because it's, it's complicated, but also at the same time, if those instructors who are in charge of special education aren't, aren't aware of it, then who are, who on earth are we expecting to be?
Prithvi: Absolutely. And that's so many similarities between UK and US in terms of legislation, but also the barriers and challenges. I mean, it's almost like we mirror each other in terms of provision or lack of it in both countries.
Ian: Sure. If you don't mind me asking, what was it that, that, that, uh, interested you in autism research to begin with? Was there something that led you down this path specifically?
Prithvi: I wish I could give you a nice neat story and say this is what happened, but I would say it was more of a chance than anything else.
Ian: Sure.
Prithvi: So as I said, professionally, I'm showing my age here now, but when I, when I got trained to [00:06:00] be a teacher in the UK at that time, we still had provision to be trained for teaching children with special educational needs, which we don't have afterwards.
So I was trained, getting trained to teach children with what we'll call as intellectual disabilities right now. And one of my first placements was in a center for children on the autistic spectrum. And I was really fascinated by actually how autism was considered back then. I'm talking about many moons ago now, but just kind of how different it was, but also the fact that the strategies I had or what I was being trained were not really working for these children in this classroom.
So, it was almost like a personal challenge. I felt like these children make me think and they may ask me questions, everything I'm doing all the time. So that was a hook for me. I'm like, I want to explore this and understand a bit more. So it was almost like by chance of where I ended up having my placement rather than [00:07:00] a design and a plan because not many people knew about autism.
I think when at that time I didn't even… yeah, I didn't know any of my family members or anybody talking about autism at all.
Ian: Yeah, it's, you know, we've talked about this on the podcast as well, just the idea of being involved in an area of research that really is still developing that we, you know, there are so many areas you can be involved in where it feels like it's pretty well established at this point and autism studies really isn't.
Not that there isn't a significant body of work out there, but there's still so much that just hasn't been even approached or anything. It really is a sort of a growth industry, so to speak.
Prithvi: Yeah, absolutely.
Ian: So, I know your research can't just be boiled down to bullet points, but if you could, if you were to, if someone were to ask you to just for just a few recommendations about inclusion of autistic people in community. What are the, [00:08:00] what are the sort of baseline recommendations, the starting points that you would offer to people?
Prithvi: I mean, I'm probably—if I define inclusion, let's start with that.
Ian: Sure.
Prithvi: If I say inclusion and what it means, I think There's a lot of emphasis, uh, in lots of policies across the world that inclusion is about placement in kind of a regular settings, uh, and access to a regular setting.
And I think that's one dimension of inclusion. That's just the beginning of inclusion, because as, as Mel Ainscow talks about in his work, I think inclusion is broader than that. We need to look at factors such as does the individual actually get opportunities to participate in this context? And do they get opportunities to actually showcase what they are good at? That sense of achievement that you need to have and I think the bigger thing for me has always been that does this person feel they belong here.
[00:09:00] Is that sense of belonging happening and taking those dimensions I often query about, “how do we define inclusion and what inclusion is?” Because a lot of talk happens about inclusion, where academics and adults talk about what inclusion should be, and often the voice that's missing for my research especially is actually children and young people.
Nobody asked them, “where do you feel included? What makes you feel comfortable?” So, the beginning step for me in terms of recommendations for inclusion is actually starting with the individual, ask them what makes them feel included, what is it that actually makes them feel comfortable, rather than making assumptions about what the individual should have.
And I think along with that is also recognition, and we all talk about this in the field of autism, often that no two autistic individuals are the same. So if you got it right for one [00:10:00] individual does not necessarily mean that your provision is necessarily inclusive for other people. So that kind of a very individual nature of, of inclusion.
I mean, I often give example to my students about the focus nowadays about the autistic clap and the fact that we need to do kind of the deaf wave is the kind of autistic clap that we need to do because that's supposed to be inclusive. And I say that's inclusive for some autistic individuals who are sensory sensitive to hearing, but we're not considering at all young people who are sensory sensitive to vision because there's such visual stimulation, all hands going up and waves happening.
Because we tick box one thing and we think we are inclusive. It's an inclusive event for autism because we don't clap at all and not realize that diversity and these are autistic organizations, again, forget about mainstream services, where we just kind of do this kind of a very tick box exercise to [00:11:00] inclusion, and I think true inclusion has to be very personalized and understanding about context, which make an individual feel inclusive or not, which does mean a flexible approach to services.
Rather than thinking this is how it works, everybody needs to fit into it, but looking at how do we make adaptations and this is where I suppose inclusion becomes almost utopian idea some would say, because how could you get it perfect for everybody else, everybody. And I'm not saying I think I sit in that kind of a biopsychosocial model of disability where I'm saying an individual will have to make some adjustments to certain extent because society doesn't run if we all of us don't make certain levels of compromise.
But there's also a need to accept and enjoy and be welcoming of diversities, and I think there's still an issue with that and that is problematic. [00:12:00] So if we, if, if as organizations, we actually look at this, that it's, as some researchers would say, this is an ongoing process where you need to continuously reflect and see, are we including this person or this group of people who are with us right now?
We were inclusive four years back, but the cohort has changed and we need to think differently. Then I think we will be in a right place because some researchers say it's a process.
Ian: Sure, I and we encounter the same thing in the church too. I think what everybody's looking for is that tick box box list that you're asking about.
Like, here are the things that we can do. And once we do this. Yes. The problem is solved.
Prithvi: Absolutely.
Ian: And it's that distinction between welcoming, which every church community considers themselves to be versus inclusion versus true belonging. And how are we really truly incorporating people into the life of the community and finding ways for them to thrive rather than just tolerating them for lack of a better word, [00:13:00] right?
Prithvi: Yeah. And also kind of, again, understanding that levels of engagement that for some individuals engaging in a church or in a faith group would be actually just coming to the place when it's all quiet. For others it would be actually being part of the hymns and singing because they're actually Enjoy that aspect.
So again, not closing doors and saying, “Oh, you're autistic, so you can't possibly be enjoying coming to a loud service, so we'll have only a silent service for you.” Because again, we are making those judgments rather than allowing the people to make those judgments because we still need to give them the choice.
Ian: Well, changing gears a bit, one of the things that your research deals with is that intersectionality that you mentioned, the sort of, compounding factors when it comes to inclusion of being autistic, intellectual disability, being a member of a minority community. What do you find, what [00:14:00] insights, what challenges do you see around intersectionality?
Prithvi: Well, I mean, one of the things that we have, I think, in the field of autism broadly is that, for the reasons that you said, because it's been a developing field, I think the emphasis in the field of autism has been always about explaining and identifying what is different about autism. How is autism different from, in initial days, from intellectual disabilities and mental health?
So it has always been. that emphasis that autism is distinct, even though we know, depending upon how we take statistics, between some say 25, some say 75 percent of autistic individuals are likely to have a co-occurring condition. But the research has been to try and provide the distinctiveness of autism, which has meant that we don't really [00:15:00] or at least I feel we don't see individuals holistically because none of us are just one dimension.
So yes, you could be autistic, if I use that identity first language, but actually probably being Christian is more important for you, or the fact that you are black or Asian is more important, or you're a lesbian or gay or other factors. And that has not been the norm in the field of autism for a very, very long time.
They're starting to talk about gender, to a certain extent, girls and autism and women and autism have become the kind of trends, and to certain extent around sexuality, there's an increasing awareness about LGBTQ. But ethnicity has been kind of, is still quite marginalized, even in this kind of intersectionality research that happens in the field of autism.
And that probably is the kind of field that I've embraced most out of all of them simply because I feel that group that gets marginalized [00:16:00] in the UK. I'm conscious also in US and other places of the world. So I'm interested in saying that none of us are one aspect and what we know about autism is actually based on certain groups of people.
So, the fact that, for example, there has been very little research about religion and autism, because, again, researchers who are doing autism research perhaps are from secular basis and have those implications, whereas faith is such a kind of central aspect for some communities and some ethnic groups that if you don't talk about faith and their autism, you actually are not listening to that person at all.
And that is uncomfortable for, again, for some of the individuals I work with and professionals I work with because it's not a topic, I mean, I don't know how it is in the US, but in the UK, we tend not to talk about your religious beliefs because that is a taboo subject. You don't [00:17:00] ask that. You might even ask about your partners and sexuality, but religion, no, no.
So that, that becomes really tricky in terms of how, how you deal with those intersectionalities. And for me, I think the challenges of not engaging with the research with those kind of broad intersectionalities is, we don't know exactly what the experiences of individuals are who, who belong to multiple marginalized groups for one reason or the other.
We also don't know what we think as good practice is actually applicable for all these individuals with these diverse backgrounds and needs. And it might be something as simple as linguistic, for example, even kind of well-established strategies like picture exchange communication system, for example, is based on English as your language.
Now, what happens if you're a bilingual individual whose probably linguistic grammar structures are different or [00:18:00] one of those languages which actually write from the other side like Arabic or Farsi or… we don't have strategies for that. And so there's a lot of what I call in the field of autism, cultural imperialism that happens where white values are taken and are then normalized as the view for everybody.
And when I say white, I say I probably also white middle class secular values, which therefore are not really looking at the subtleties, even within the white communities or actually any other communities. Which raises the question about, again, our knowledge of autism and how relevant it is globally, altogether.
So that's where I come and a lot of my writing and my research kind of tries to pull that out together, continuously saying, “Well, do we know what we call as autism would be called as autism across the world,” for example. So I go to the basics of challenging the concept of autism [00:19:00] sometimes.
Ian: Sure. No, and I mean, it's, it's fascinating because the, the, the, the area of this that gets the most attention, at least that I see is that is in diagnosis, right?
In the idea that even their definition of autism is based on early studies that were almost exclusively white young boys, right? And European, Northern Hemisphere, affluent, etc, etc. So not entirely homogenous, but pretty darn close. So even in terms of understanding and defining what autism is acro—outside of those demographics isn't universally agreed upon or equitably applied.
So there's, even just in terms of diagnosis, which of course is the gateway to all the supports in question, isn't agreed upon and doesn't really, how do I want to say, doesn't really [00:20:00] capture all of the autistic individuals because we haven't paid attention to that. But I love that your research is paying attention to even, sort of for further on down the line, not just how do we properly diagnose, but what are the differences in presentation?
How does this interact differently with culture in a way, which I think is one of those areas that we just really don't, not that, not that no one's studying it, but there just isn't, there isn't the body of research or the, or the understanding more broadly.
Prithvi: Yeah. And unfortunately, some of the kind of research that's coming is still coming from kind of the global north norms.
So, research when they take, they are still kind of blaming the group. So, they would say, “Oh, the Somali community do not really understand autism and are not accepting of autism, so the problem lies with Somali community who need to be more welcoming and understanding,” because again, we are [00:21:00] judging other communities based on our norms and our understanding of autism.
And never ever question that our construct of autism may not be universal and therefore has problems in terms of how it translates across different cultures. So that subtlety and humility somehow lacks. So I often say to, again, my colleagues and students that we are moving away from the deficit based language when it comes to autistic individuals, but we impose it on other cultures when it comes to relating to autism research, because it's the deficit lies with that community, not that maybe it's a difference and we need to engage with that difference in a more respectable way.
Ian: That's a really fantastic way to put it. I love that.
Prithvi: Thank you.
Ian: You know, we talked about the idea that most of your research is built around an academic setting. Do you think, are there any inserts, I'm sorry, any insights from your research that you think apply [00:22:00] beyond educational settings, particularly for churches, for religious communities, for faith communities?
Any particular insights that you think they are missing and could stand to incorporate beyond what we've said already.
Prithvi: Yeah, no, I mean, although a lot of my research is within educational context, I think I'm also quite interested in family experiences. So quite a bit of my work has been around family experiences, experience of families from a broad range of minority groups, first generation immigrants coming to the UK, or one of my postdocs was looking around kind of black fathers experiences of having an individual young person on the autistic spectrum.
And I think part of those, what you see is, again, going back to that bit about where communities have a very strong religious belief, that comes with interpretations of how autism is understood and interpreted [00:23:00] by faith leaders, depending upon which faith you believe in.
Because, as we know, autism was not there when Bible or Quran or Torah were written, which means that there isn't really a description of how autism is and what that means and where the role of an autistic individual is within the community. And it's left to almost the priest or the faith leader to interpret it and explain that to families.
And it's sometimes, I find, hard to differentiate religion or faith from cultural values, because they do get intermingled in kind of how you understand concepts. So, I work with a lot of families who talk about the fact that in their own cultural backgrounds, for example, having a disability is seen as a sin, perhaps, or something that the individual has committed.
And so they deserve it, or they, it's a generational curse. So it's carrying on from [00:24:00] one generation to the other, because the whole generation has been cursed as something they've done terribly wrong. Or it's a result of an evil eye, somebody cast an evil eye on you, and therefore you had a child who had disabilities such as autism or anything else.
So, religion is quite an important factor in terms of how people make sense of what autism is. And I think, I'm not saying all of them do that. I mean, I've also worked with families who would say that, they feel that they have an autistic child because they feel they have been selected, that God has selected that they are the people who have the capacity to look after this individual and therefore have been given this special child to look after.
So you've got kind of different explanations that families are coming through, sometimes in collaboration with religious or faith leaders, but sometimes perhaps not necessarily with any conversations, but [00:25:00] their own interpretations of it. But if those interpretations, whether negative or positive, are also shared by community, A, that has an impact in terms of how, how the community views autism, and therefore how the family experiences autism as well.
Because if everybody in the community thinks autism is a result of a sin or because you've been unfaithful to your partner, then they are judging you and your family in a very different way to, to not having it. So, there are those bits about how do we actually make awareness within religious communities about autism.
One of my PhD students has been looking around, um, Muslim parents experience or Muslim families experiences of autism and some of the kind of families who follow, kind of, traditional Muslim customs where you are expected to pray five times a day, you're fasting for Ramadan and all of that.[00:26:00]
And they had, autistic individuals within their families who perhaps do not necessarily have that understanding of processes. We're struggling to, again, to try and say, how does Islam interpret? So, Islam interprets that some people with disabilities or with mental health issues are exempted, but autism is not a mental health issue.
So is my autistic family member exempted from Ramadan's fasting for 40 days or not. And they were saying that depending upon the imam, they all interpreted differently and gave different information of whether you're allowed to or not allowed to exempt. So, there's also a challenge, I think, for religious leaders, irrespective of which faith is, how do you interpret religious text in our understanding of autism and help autistic individuals and families to make sense of that?
And we, [00:27:00] we, again, I suppose, religion and autism is such an emerging field that we have very, very little guidance and a couple of pieces of guidance that exist in the UK, again, make this kind of broad comparisons of what an inclusive church would be.
Now, as you know, better than probably I do, that, one denomination church practices do not necessarily match the other ones. So how do you make, what is an inclusive church in Protestant faith to be inclusive in a kind of a evangelical church, for example, because the practices are going to be so different and that knowledge or lack of it would mean that some families I work with felt that when they had an autistic individual go into the church and they, they were stimming or having self-stimulatory behaviors or were making, everybody was touching at them and looking at them, and made, [00:28:00] made them and kind of the whole process very non inclusive in a, in a place where you think would be very inclusive.
So there are those kinds of challenges along with, I think, a lot of research that your Center does around kind of the liturgy of church, about the kind of practices, the sensory impact that would have on an autistic individual.
And how do you make the church community inclusive for an autistic individual if they would want to be part of it. So, there's so much for us to actually understand and unpick and do because I do feel that getting it right in kind of places of faith is so important because it is very fundamental for some individuals existence and understanding of the world.
Ian: And yeah, I think there's a parallel between what you said about, sort of religion being a third rail, something you can't talk about [00:29:00] in, in the UK, right? And so what ends up happening in that case is that the research has nothing to say about the intersection between autism and faith.
I think the same is true from a—I'm a clergy person in the Episcopal Church, and so for me, the same is true from a church perspective: If you never say anything about disability and theology, then all you're saying is either: just listen to whoever else is in fact talking about this, and there's a lot of harmful message about disability and sin out there, or you're saying God doesn't actually have anything to say about disability, so you have to come up with your own framework.
Prithvi: Yeah.
Ian: And so I think often there's this tendency to assume, well, I'm not an expert on that, so I can't talk about it. But then, then all that means is people are left to sort of forge meaning on their own and come up with their own understandings. And instead of actually framing it in [00:30:00] terms of, in my context, a gospel message, they're just hearing whatever they're hearing from the culture and just sort of piecing something together.
So I do think, I mean, I understand the hesitancy sometimes, but I think part of what you're speaking to is the fact that, there's a vacuum out there right now, and without, in that vacuum, people are just sort of piecing together their own understandings, and some of those are helpful, and some of those are harmful, and some of those are really harmful, right? If your only understanding of autism is built around sin, you're not going to treat, you're not likely to treat autistic people very well, right?
Prithvi: Absolutely. And as you said, I think if autistic researchers don't, or researchers in the field of autism, or practitioners in the field of autism don't talk about faith and religious leaders don't talk about autism, then who is going to talk about anything?
So, you're, you're left with, [00:31:00] as you say, nobody's talking about this and yet faith is an important aspect of it. I remember when I was working in adult services, I had a gentleman who was about 60 and he has a very strong, he's Jewish and he had a very strong Jewish identity for him. His Jewish identity was more important than his autistic identity.
And he said, “Nobody talks about it, Prithvi.” He said, “When I go to Jewish community, they don't want to know about my autism. When I go to autism world, they don't want to know about my Jewish identity.” So he says, “I almost had to reinvent myself in both situations because nobody wants to know who I am as a whole person.”
And this is a man who was in his sixties, feeling throughout his life, that has been his experience, that he had to compartmentalize his identities. And almost what we talk about in the field of autism, almost camouflaging the other identity because that's not welcome here.
Ian: I, we've talked on the podcast briefly about that idea of camouflaging versus [00:32:00] masking and I'm, I'm interested in the camouflaging language just because of what it implies about being more of a defense mechanism than a means of deception. So I love that. Although I know not everyone's on board with even that, this is the thing is, you know.
Prithvi: Well, I mean, if you ask a linguist, they'll say it's about code switching, isn't it? You're switching your code,
Ian: Exactly.
Prithvi: just how you need to behave. So, you know, but the principle is the same, isn't it? Of how you're changing your identity. And that's not always wrong, but it's also being conscious that there should be some places where you are seen in a holistic way because I don't necessarily need to go and talk to my students in the university about my religious beliefs because that's not the reason they are in my lectures, they want to know about my knowledge around autism.
But there should be places which will actually allow me to talk about my passion in autism, but also my religious beliefs if I had them.
Ian: Right. Yeah, and, and that's, I think [00:33:00] that speaks to why this is so important, because if you're talking about education, you're talking about the majority of people's young adult life, right?
And in some cases, the overwhelming majority, you know, they're spending a lot of time in school. And if you talk about faith, then ideally, you're talking about a significant aspect of someone's life. And you're right, if you can't, if you can't truly be yourself in either of those settings, then it doesn't leave a lot of space.
Prithvi: Yeah. And, I mean, unfortunately, again, I don't know how things work in the US, but if children on the autistic spectrum are expected to need kind of additional time, the kind of lessons that they are usually kind of taken away from are things like religious education, because it's considered to be not an important subject, or as some of the research but it's too abstract for autistic individuals to understand.
So maybe we shouldn't actually include them in religious educational. So again, this kind of [00:34:00] assumptions that people make about the ability of an autistic individual, and closing the doors even before actually allowing them to explore it, is really tricky because how do I know whether I have a faith or not?
And which faith I have, if you don't even talk to me about that. And that's kind of almost taking away the voice of the individual, because as I say to a lot of practitioners I work with, we focus so much on autistic identity that we forget about other identities of the individual.
Ian: Yeah, and I love that idea of not closing doors, right, of keeping the doors open. That's a beautiful image to take away. And I'm thankful that your research is working to keep those doors open.
Prithvi: Thank you.
Ian: We are about out of time, but Prithvi, it has been such a joy talking with you today. For our listeners, if you have any questions, you can message us @autismtheology on X or Instagram, or you can send us an [00:35:00] email at [e-mail]. Even if it's just to say hi, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening.
Zoe: Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology Podcast. If you have any questions for us, or just want to say hi, Please email us at [e-mail] or find us on Twitter @AutismTheology.