Showing Love And Care In Different Ways
Helen Edgar, Autistic Realms (2026)
Autistic people have always had our own ways of showing love and care that may be different from the norm and expected ways.
It may not be the ways the world tends to expect — the eye contact, the small talk, the neat reciprocal exchanges. It’s often something different.
Perhaps offering your friend a twig you picked up on a walk. Sharing a meme of a funny joke between you on your phone. Sitting in the same room without saying anything for hours, both doing your own thing. Asking someone to tell you something about what they are passionate about, because you know how much it means to them. Asking if someone has eaten, because you noticed they probably haven’t, as they were so absorbed in their flow.
These are not lesser versions of connection or showing love.
They are Autistic languages of care.
The Five Neurodivergent Love Languages were first named by Amythest Schaber (2021)— an Autistic educator and creator whose work has shaped how so many of us understand our own relational lives. Their original framing was simple as they shared a tweet of the five neurodivergent love languages and an entire community responded (54k likes) by saying yes, that’s exactly it, I get it too!
Ryan Boren at Stimpunks Foundation then documented and expanded on the locutions in depth, and as Co-Creative Director at Stimpunks, we have been working on them together over the past few years, embedding them into Stimpunks Patterns and my own work at Autistic Realms.
Love Locutions
A locution is a word or expression characteristic of a group or cultural level. These locutions are characteristic of Autistic culture — they emerged from Autistic community and Autistic ways of being. If you are multiply neurodivergent — Autistic, ADHD, PDA, or otherwise divergent in multiple ways — you may well recognise yourself here too.
This year the five locutions became the foundation for Penguin Pebbling: A Game of Creating Belonging, Building Connection and Understanding Autistic Identity — a card game I conceptualised and then worked on with Ryan Boren. But before the game, before the cards, there was just the recognition. That moment of — oh. That is what I have been doing all along. That is what care looks like for me and it inspired Penguin Pebbling: A Game of Creating Belonging, Building Connection and Understanding Autistic Identity
Part of why these locutions matter so much is what Damian Milton called the Double Empathy Problem — the reality that communication difficulties between Autistic and non-Autistic people are mutual. The Five Autistic Love Locutions are the language many of us have always been speaking and expressing and naming them helps others learn to hear it too.
This is my own take on the five locutions — through the lens of monotropism, lived experience, and the Autistic community I share.
Five Autistic Love Locutions
Infodumping
Sharing what you love, in depth and at length.
When an Autistic person infodumps, they are not failing to read the room or just talking over people or trying to take over a conversation. Infodumping is a way of letting people in. It is a way of sharing your Monotropic attention tunnel and showing that you trust and feel safe with those you are with.
I know this in myself, the moment when something I love comes up in conversation and I feel the pull to go deep, to share all of it, and also the small hesitation that asks: is this welcome? That hesitation is the Double Empathy Problem, the moment of doubt: Will I be accepted here? Am I safe to share?
As Stimpunks describe it, encouraging someone to infodump on their special interest is a recognised form of Autistic empathy — often nothing makes Autistic people happier than someone genuinely wanting to know about their passions and interests.
The Infodumping cards in Penguin Pebbling create space for this — an invitation to share what you love, without apology.
Read more: Monotropism and the attention tunnel · Map of Monotropic Experiences · Stimpunks: Infodumping
Parallel Play and Body Doubling
Being alone, together.
This is one of the most quietly radical of the Autistic love locutions. Two people sharing a space, but may be in different places, or being on the same video call, each doing their own thing. No conversation required. No performance of togetherness. Just the comfort of shared co-regulatory presence.
For many Autistic people, this is not a lesser form of connection — it is the way people often feel safer to be themselves. Being alongside someone without the demand of constant interaction can be deeply regulating. It is how many of us recharge while still feeling close and a sense of connection to another.
I notice this in myself most clearly when I am working. Having someone nearby — even silently, even online with a camera on or off — changes something in my nervous system. It helps the task feel less daunting, and I feel less alone. I don’t need them to do anything; I often just need to know they are there.
Body doubling — being present with someone while they do a task — is a related practice that many ADHD and Autistic people find transformative. Something about another person’s presence helps the nervous system settle and the work begin and give some accountability.
As I wrote in Shared Flow: Turning Attention Together, the most connecting thing is often simply to enter and share someone’s attention tunnel rather than pulling them out of it.
Parallel play says: I want to be near you. I don’t need anything from you. Just stay.
The Parallel Play cards in Penguin Pebbling include a card where the whole group simply does their own thing for five to ten minutes — no communication needed. Just being together. It is often the card people respond to most.
Read more: Stimpunks: Parallel Play · Stimpunks: Body Doubling · Stimpunks: Flow
Support Swapping
Mutual aid at human scale.
Autistic people have always found each other and filled each other’s gaps. You may notice this in the way you are with your friends or those you work with, offering to carry more today because someone else’s capacity or spoons are low, and then another time they swap with you. It is not about keeping score, just noticing what is needed and offering what and when we can.
I have experienced this in Autistic community more than anywhere else in my life. Someone notices you are struggling and just offers something. No performance of help, no big deal made of it, no debt implied. Just: I saw you needed this, here it is. Or even just reassuring you that the low spoons and low capacity are real, and to give yourself some time to replenish. Checking in with each other is just as valuable.
Support swapping is rooted in interdependence — the recognition that we are all reliant on each other and that capacity fluctuates, especially for those of us whose nervous systems are more sensitive to the demands of the world.
The Support Swapping cards in Penguin Pebbling are some of the most tender in the deck. They ask: what do you find genuinely easy that others find hard? What do you wish someone would notice and offer? What is one small thing you need today?
Read more: Stimpunks: Support Swapping · Stimpunks: Mutual Aid · Stimpunks: Interdependence
Penguin Pebbling
I saw this and thought of you.
Penguins pass pebbles to the penguins they care about, not because they have to, just because it says: I thought of you. I wanted you to have this. I care.
Autistic people do this too — and have always done it, long before it had a name. A smooth stone from a beach, a photo of something that reminded you of someone, a meme so specifically them it could only have been sent by you. A song, a leaf, a word….. a penguin pebble could be anything!
I first wrote about penguin pebbling in Penguin Pebbling: An Autistic Love Language back in 2023, framing it through monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem. When an Autistic person’s attention tunnels into something, we often carry the people we love inside that focus too. A pebble is what emerges— a small, tangible proof that someone was in our thoughts and that we care.
The Map of Monotropic Experiences I made with Stimpunks marks Penguin Pebbling Cove as a real place within the landscape for many monotropic people (Autistic/ ADHD).
Autistic love is often communicated through shared attention, shared flow and co-created meaning. Pebbles are how we build those bridges — and once you start noticing the pebbles people pass you, you realise they have been doing it all along and really care for you!
The Penguin Pebbling cards in the game ask: have you ever found something and immediately thought of someone? Is there a way you show care that people don’t always recognise as care?
Read more: Penguin Pebbling: An Autistic Love Language · Stimpunks: Penguin Pebbling · Map of Monotropic Experiences
Deep Pressure
Regulation is relational.
For many Autistic people, what the body needs to feel safe is sensory. It may be the weight, pressure, warmth, or texture of a blanket. A tight hug if wanted and consented to. The physical sensation of being held by the world, just feeling safe in your own space in your own way with your favourite food, scents, interests and being able to stim and move how your body needs.
This locution recognises that nervous system regulation is not a solo act. We regulate in relationship with our environments, with sensory input, and with each other. When we create space to meet our sensory needs and those we support it can be one of the most valuable signs of care and love.
For me this often looks like being wrapped in my weighted blanket, in the dark with my fairy lights on when there has felt too much. Knowing what you need and being in spaces where you can meet your needs is a form of self-advocacy and self-care.
The Deep Pressure cards in Penguin Pebbling are about knowing yourself. What helps your nervous system settle? What do you reach for when things are too much? Naming these things — to yourself, to others — is its own act of self-care and connection.
As I wrote in Glimmers: Autistic Joy and Monotropism, even the smallest moments of sensory comfort can be glimmers — little sparkly signs of regulation and joy that give meaning to life, yet are so often underrecognised and valued.
Read more: Stimpunks: Deep Pressure · Stimpunks: Interoception · Glimmers: Autistic Joy and Monotropism
Why These Locutions Matter
If you relate to these Five Autistic Love Locutions, you may start seeing them everywhere — and you may start recognising all the pebbles people have been passing you all along, in ways you were perhaps not taught to receive.
You may begin to realise the person who sends you seventeen links about your interest is saying I care and value your friendship. The friend who sits quietly beside you while you work is saying I’m here. The one who checks whether you’ve eaten is saying I see you and I want to support you. The stone someone picked up on a walk and gave you without explanation may be saying I thought of you today and I wanted you to know, I care, I love you.
Play the Penguin Pebbling Game
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In Person Downloadable Cards To Print
The Five Autistic Love Locutions are the heart of Penguin Pebbling: A Game of Creating Belonging, Building Connection and Understanding Autistic Identity — a free card game created by Helen Edgar, Autistic Realms & Ryan Boren, Stimpunks (2026).
Play online using the widget at autisticrealms.com, or download and print the cards. Bring real pebbles, or anything small from your collection.
🐧 Play the game: autisticrealms.com/penguin-pebbling
📖 Practitioners guide: Penguin Pebbling: Theory, Practice and the Five Neurodivergent Love Locutions
🌐 Stimpunks: Five Love Locutions: stimpunks.org
🌐 Stimpunks Glossary: stimpunks.org/glossary
Helen Edgar is an Autistic writer, educator, and advocate at Autistic Realms and Co-Creative Director at Stimpunks Foundation. Her work is grounded in monotropism, neuroqueer theory, and Autistic lived experience.
