Blog 28 April 2023

Autism month – fourth guest blog

By Yasmin Darling

The final of our weekly blogs for Autism Month focuses on the neurodiversity movement.

The neurodiversity movement, where the autistic experience is central, consistently offers society alternative ways of understanding and engaging with autistic people and understanding the autistic experience.

The dominant paradigm around autism currently presents and purports a ‘deficit-based’ perspective. This perspective is based on outdated medical models that cite multiple descriptors which by proxy cause harm to autistic people. Describing a large section of society as ‘less’ causes diagnosis delay, shaming, hiding, maltreatment, and social masking. It also smacks of eugenics, which is scary.

The same health system that cites these deficits is also tasked with meeting the co-occurring health inequalities and mental health needs that for many arise as a result of the trauma, lack of support and exclusion that stem from this dangerous idea that we are essentially broken.

We are not. We are of equal worth and ask for a much-needed paradigm shift to be actioned. It is possible to respect differences whilst simultaneously meeting support needs and acknowledging the unique strengths autistic people bring. Our attention to detail, ability to focus on a task, our reliability, honesty and logical thinking are all qualities very much needed by society.