About The Autistic VOICE Project
This project speaks from within Autistic culture and Neurodivergent embodiment, not about them.
Who We Are
We’re Erin & Matt. We’re Matt & Erin.
We’re Autistic adults and mental health clinicians in ongoing conversation about Autistic life.
The Autistic VOICE Project started because we were tired of hearing Autistic life explained about us instead of spoken by us. We wanted a place to talk from inside the experience, without translating for comfort or sanding down the edges.
This podcast isn’t a performance. It’s a real conversation between two Autistic people thinking, regulating, questioning, laughing, and sometimes circling back when something needs repair. That rhythm matters. It’s part of how Autistic communication actually works when no one is rushing it or trying to make it sound “normal.”
We don’t offer tidy answers. We talk about what’s real: identity, sensory truth, burnout, unmasking, relationships, parenting, disability, and the systems that shape our lives whether we consent to them or not.
Why “VOICE”
VOICE stands for Validating Our Identity, Culture, and Experience.
That’s not a slogan. It’s a description of what’s missing in most conversations about Autism. Autistic life is culture. It’s relational. It’s shaped over time. And it deserves to be spoken in its own language.
Language matters. The words used about us shape how we’re treated and how we learn to see ourselves. We use ours carefully, and we push back on language that flattens, pathologizes, or erases Autistic reality.
Our Team
We work together and separately, depending on the context. What stays consistent is the orientation: Autistic-centered, neuro-affirming, and grounded in lived experience.
Together, we teach and speak about Autistic-centered therapy, neuro-affirming practice, attunement and misattunement, and the systems that shape Autistic life.
We’re especially interested in mixed-neurotype dynamics. We don’t treat one neurotype as the baseline for “normal.” We’re aiming for understanding, not forced sameness.
Erin works primarily with developmental trauma, mixed-neurotype couples, and neurodiversity-affirming therapy. She’s a Brainspotting consultant and trainer whose work connects attachment, trauma, and neurodivergent embodiment.
ERIN FINDLEY, PSYD
Matt specializes in assessment and advocacy for children, adolescents, and young adults. His work focuses on Autistic identity development and the ways systems misread Autistic behavior and need.
MATT LOWRY, LPP
About Name Order
You’ll see our names listed in different orders throughout this site and our materials. That’s intentional.
We work as equal partners. Leadership, structure, disruption, and synthesis move between us depending on the conversation and what’s needed. Changing the order reflects that reality, rather than implying hierarchy.
Acknowledgment
We’re neuro-affirming and justice-oriented in practice, not just in language. That means rejecting deficit-based framing while naming the reality of disability and systemic harm.
We understand the systems that define and control Autistic lives as expressions of broader hierarchies embedded in medical, educational, psychological, and economic structures. These systems aren’t neutral, and pretending they are doesn’t make anyone safer.
We see Autistic emotion as information, not a problem to fix.
We don’t separate lived experience from clinical knowledge.
We don’t separate the personal from the political.
Clarity matters to us. So does accessibility. So does leaving room for complexity without turning it into theory.
Our Commitments
This project exists because Autistic people keep speaking, even when we’re told not to. Every listener, conversation, and shared moment helps keep this space open.
We’re glad you’re here.