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Category: Neurodiversity

Word cloud showing terms such as autism, spectrum, children, genetics, parents, intervention, and functioning
Advocates, Researchers, and Reconciliation

Advocates, Researchers, and Reconciliation

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I’m not writing this post because I particularly want to apportion blame to either researchers or neurodiversity advocates, or to fight over old grievances, as an end in itself.  Mostly, I hope we can move forwards into a future where researchers and autistic advocates see one another as collaborators, as allies who are both fundamentally interested in the same goals – in particular, enhancing quality of life for autistic people across all the whole breadth of the multidimensionally diverse autism…

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An Air Canada twin-engine jet aircraft flying in front of a cloudy background.
A Tale of Discrimination

A Tale of Discrimination

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This is a bit of a departure from what I usually do with this blog, but I was contacted recently by an autistic person who was forbidden from pursuing an interest in aviation because of an autism diagnosis. I find this to be an outrageous case of discrimination. Now, obviously not everyone is going to be suited to flying planes. I certainly don’t think it would be my cup of tea. But a blanket ban on anyone from a particular…

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A black-and-white photograph depicting children in a row of beds, one of which is enclosed by a mesh cage. A woman in a nurse's uniform stands facing away from the beds.
A ward in the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna. Hundreds of children were murdered there in the Nazi era, while others were subjected to severe abuse. Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance.
Autism and Asperger’s in the Nazi Era

Autism and Asperger’s in the Nazi Era

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In the last couple of years, the autism world has witnessed a very intense debate regarding the historical origins of the neurotype we study.  Traditionally, Hans Asperger – one of the first people if not the first to use the term autism in its modern diagnostic sense, and the man after whom “Asperger syndrome” was named – was thought to be an essentially benevolent figure within the murderous Nazi state, which had embarked on a policy aimed at slaughtering disabled…

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Man wearing a hoodie covering face with both hands while sitting on couch
Burnout and Expectations

Burnout and Expectations

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Today, the vast majority of researchers, clinicians, and professionals in the autism world don’t know about autistic burnout.  Autistic burnout is an idea that comes from autistic adults, and given how little contact there is between autistic adults and the community of researchers supposedly dedicated to learning more about autism, most researchers will never have had a chance to learn about it.  Indeed, as far as I’m aware, the only people investigating autistic burnout from a research perspective are Dora…

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An illustration of a multicoloured brain, outlined using nodes and edges, with a question mark and musing figure in the corner.
On Neurodiversity: Part III: What is the Neurodiversity Paradigm?

On Neurodiversity: Part III: What is the Neurodiversity Paradigm?

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Author’s Note: I no longer particularly like some of the ideas in the post, which I now think are a bit oversimplified. If you want an updated take on my view of neurodiversity, I wrote an article at https://doi.org/10.1159/000523723. In Part II of this series, I discussed a lot of the basic ideas that still motivate my approach to neurodiversity.  I argued that we presently lack a clear, consistent definition of neurodiversity, and I illustrated how this ambiguity hinders our…

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Autism Research or Neurotypical Research?

Autism Research or Neurotypical Research?

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Here’s an interesting question: what is the proper subject of autism research?  Or, to rephrase things slightly, who should be the subjects of autism research? When I use the word “subject” here, I don’t mean a participant in a research study.  I’m talking about a nonliving thing, living being, or class of things or beings that is dealt with by something else (in this case, that is dealt with by autism research).  I’m asking about the proper subject matter for…

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Disability, Discrimination, and Politics

Disability, Discrimination, and Politics

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Here’s a fundamental question: what is the political status of autism?  Are autism and other disabilities simply impairments that need to be addressed through the provisions of services and supports, or are autistic people also victims of oppressive social and political systems that cause marginalization?  Do autistic people just need charity, or do we need social justice as well? We need to address this question and answer it, for I would say that the present model used to address autism…

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Deficit Isn’t a One-Way Street

Deficit Isn’t a One-Way Street

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Sometimes, the best way to see where our conventional assumptions can go wrong is to consider concrete examples. Within the pathology paradigm, we assume that autistic people are disordered, that they have deficits in different skills and abilities, but we don’t critically examine how autistic people’s environments and the typically-developing people within these environments might contribute to autistic people’s disabilities.  We ignore the possibility that the typically-developing person might be something less than a normative ideal of perfection. Autism and…

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The Philosophical Roots of Neurodiversity

The Philosophical Roots of Neurodiversity

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I can be a bit of a theory nerd, sometimes.  I like considering how different systems of thought develop in relation to one another. One of these theoretical questions that interests me is the emergence of the neurodiversity paradigm.  This idea, developed by Judy Singer in the late 1990s, is a radical departure from most of previous human thought.  The neurodiversity paradigm portrays the diversity of individual human minds and brains as something to be valued, whereas most human societies…

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Neurodiversity and Genetics Research

Neurodiversity and Genetics Research

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I’ve previously posted a description of how I see the neurodiversity paradigm, as well as a post contrasting the neurodiversity paradigm and the social model of disability.  (We often conflate the neurodiversity paradigm and the social model, but they’re really not the same thing.) Basically, I see the neurodiversity paradigm as a way of shifting our focus.  Instead of looking solely at the neurodivergent person, we can use the neurodiversity paradigm to look at both the individual and society.  We…

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