Pathology and Motivation to Access Supports
In previous posts, I’ve criticized the “pathology paradigm” of autism. I believe that there are a number of problems with this paradigm, but I always find myself returning to one that I find especially glaring: when we describe autism as pathology, when we use the language of deficit and disorder, we’re very openly suggesting to autistic people – a marginalized population with high vulnerability to mental health challenges – that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Autistic people are…