The Neurodiversity Reader: Comprehensive Summary
Executive Summary
This comprehensive work establishes neurodiversity as a fundamental paradigm shift from medical/deficit models toward understanding autism and related neurotypes as natural human variation rather than pathology. Drawing from dynamical systems theory, ecological models, lived experience narratives, and social justice frameworks, the collection examines how neurodivergent brains allocate attention and process reality differently, challenges pathologization narratives, and advocates for systemic change grounded in acceptance, inclusion, and neurodivergent leadership.
The text’s distinctive contribution lies in synthesizing multiple revolutionary frameworks: the monotropism theory of attention as a limited resource, the double empathy problem revealing bidirectional communication barriers between neurotypes, the concept of autistic culture as a “serial collective” bound by shared social positioning rather than biological essentialism, and the neuroqueer approach to transforming therapeutic practice. Unlike conventional literature that positions autism as deficit requiring correction, this work argues that autistic traits represent evolutionary adaptations optimized for certain environments, with the same characteristics pathologized in diagnostic criteria being celebrated in specialized domains like science, engineering, and art.
The Neurodiversity Paradigm: From Medical Model to Social Justice Framework
The neurodiversity framework originated in 1998 from sociologist Judy Singer, building on biodiversity concepts to argue that neurological variation strengthens human populations, similar to genetic diversity in ecosystems. The movement emerged from autistic self-advocacy networks and pioneers like Jim Sinclair, whose essay “Don’t Mourn For Us” (1992) reframed autism from tragedy to identity.
The paradigm rejects false dichotomies between “normal” and “abnormal” brains, instead positioning neurodiversity as a natural and valuable form of human variation and evidence that “normal” cognition is culturally constructed fiction. Over 20 years of development has produced autism-centered scholarship, organizations like AASPIRE and the Participatory Autism Research Collective (PARC), and mainstream cultural presence.
Critically, neurodiversity encompasses not only developmental differences like autism and ADHD but also psychological responses to trauma and distress. Voice-hearing, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress are understood as reasonable human responses to trauma, not pathological disorders. Variables most strongly correlating with what psychiatry labels “mental illness” are not genetic or biological factors but traumatic experiences—poverty, racism, assault, neglect. The pathology paradigm’s hunt for biogenetic causes removes responsibility from the traumatizing society and places it on the individual, obscuring how a disordered society produces reasonable defensive responses.
These responses only become “disabling” when experienced in relation to social contracts: employment relationships, intimate relationships, community expectations, self-care requirements. The neurodiversity paradigm reframes trauma responses as psychological divergence—ways in which the nervous system has evolved to protect the person.
Monotropism and the Dynamics of Attention as a Limited Resource
Lesser and Murray’s mathematical model conceptualizes mind as a non-linear dynamical system where “attention” is the primary limited resource. “Interests” (patterns of arousal in this system) compete for and consume attention, with properties including emotional charge, inter-arousability, and autocatalytic arousal.
The model generates distinct features despite strong diffusion, producing what they term the Monotropic Condition in autism—where fewer interests are aroused to very high intensities rather than many interests at moderate arousal. This explains heightened sensory acuity, spatial abilities, intense focus and hyperfocus, pain tolerance, and exceptional abilities in meaningful pursuits.
Significantly, the model is not pathological—it represents one calibration on a continuum of normal mind types, optimized for searching scarce resources in dangerous environments. “Polytropic” minds distribute attention across many moderate interests simultaneously; monotropic minds concentrate resources on fewer, more intense interests. Both configurations are evolutionarily viable.
Language and “self” are modeled as elaborate sub-systems of interests, with ego as an emergent property of language rather than a prime mover. Consciousness exists on a threshold: interests below awareness threshold affect motor control and intuitive functioning without interference.
The intensity of autistic interests—described as “deep love,” absolute commitment to what one loves—represents profound engagement rather than obsession, enabling exceptional abilities in focused domains when socially valued.
Dimensions of Difference: Interest-Based Model and Hyper/Hypo Polarization
Dinah Murray’s ecological, embodied account replaces medical and social models with an interest-based framework viewing autism as extreme polarization of resource distribution across systems. Instead of “weak central coherence,” she proposes autistic cognition creates areas of sharp, vivid coherence (intense interests with strong “priors”/prior beliefs) contrasting with unexplored gaps lacking structure. This hyper/hypo pattern recurs physiologically and may relate to fundamental imbalance in approach/avoidance mechanisms.
Intensity effects enhance speed, accuracy, volume, duration, thoroughness, and engagement when interests are engaged. Emotional expression tends toward “very X” or “not X at all” rather than moderate ranges, creating polarized emotion misread as inappropriate by neurotypical observers. These are features of autistic neurology, not defects requiring correction.
Spiky profiles mean autistic individuals show extreme variation in abilities; one autistic person may struggle with executive function while excelling at mathematics, while another exhibits opposite patterns. Lifelong development means learning, understanding, and discovery happen throughout life; capacity fluctuates based on internal states and environmental engagement.
Monotropism enables hyperfocus—the ability to concentrate vast cognitive resources on leading interests—creating enhanced processing, explaining exceptional abilities without requiring separate explanation; the focused attention mechanism is transparent.
Pathologization and the Misdiagnosis of Autistic Traits as Deficits
Murray critiques how identical brain features are labeled pathological in autistic people but celebrated in non-autistic people (e.g., attention to detail in scientists vs. autism diagnosis criteria). She argues that “mind-blindness is a mischaracterization”: no one can actually read minds; successful connection requires sharing interests and prior knowledge, not telepathy. Autistic people demonstrate excellent attunement when interests are authentically shared, evidenced by mutual support and understanding at Autscape, the UK autistic-led conference.
While most people mask situationally, autistic people experience greater distress at inauthenticity, as intrinsic motivation (learning, accomplishment, stimulation) matters more than extrinsic rewards. Forced inauthenticity damages self-belief and increases vulnerability to trauma. Behaviors pathologized only in autistic people (seeking attention, self-focused behavior, rigidity) apply equally to non-autistic people yet go unremarked; inconsistent social standards reinforce stigma and prejudice rather than objective diagnosis.
The Rejection of Biological Essentialism: Understanding Autism as a Serial Collective
Despite common claims that “autism is genetic” and represents fixed “brain wiring,” the scientific evidence does not support a unified biological basis for autism. While studies show genetic components influence autistic traits, up to 1,000 different genes have been identified as increasing autism likelihood, rarely appearing in the same combinations or epigenetic processes. Crucially, no single cognitive trait is exhibited by all autistic people—even highly prevalent traits like sensitivities manifest differently in each person.
Each autistic brain is neurologically unique rather than sharing a common structure with other autistic brains. The DSM-IV task force explicitly stated mental disorders are “fuzzy, descriptive constructs, not diseases with clear boundaries.” Dr. Kupfer, chair of the DSM-5 committee, admitted in 2013 that despite decades of searching, no definitive biological or genetic markers distinguishing mental disorders have been found.
Rather than a natural kind with essential features, autism is better understood as a “serial collective”—a group bound together primarily through shared relationship to external factors (disabling sensory barriers, work and learning environment structures, social exclusion) as much as internal traits. Autistic people’s shared voice, culture, and emerging vocabularies are fundamentally based on similar social positioning and shared history within an ableist society, not on elusive shared “brain wiring.”
Autistic Perception and the Umwelt: Inhabiting Fundamentally Different Worlds
Autistic individuals process sensory input through different perceptual salience patterns—meaning different stimuli capture their attention and guide their understanding of the world compared to non-autistic people. This isn’t a deficit but rather a different enacted reality. Autistic people are “perceptual deviants” similar to bats navigating by echolocation rather than sight—their sensory hierarchies and cognitive processes create fundamentally divergent worlds from neurotypical peers.
This divergence in how reality is experienced and constructed through embodied cognition means autistic people literally inhabit different “umwelten” (subjective perceptual worlds). Neuroconstructivism shows genes, brain, cognition, and environment interact multi-directionally; brain connectivity shapes across the lifespan in response to embodied and external experience, all filtered through sensory/perceptual systems. Autistic neurology may produce divergent patterns of salience from infancy.
Predictive processing theory suggests the prefrontal cortex generates predictions and updates on prediction errors, but autistic prediction errors may differ substantially from non-autistic norms, making mutual understanding difficult.
The Double Empathy Problem: Mutual Misunderstanding Between Neurotypes
Damian Milton’s “Double Empathy Theory” explains communication barriers between autistic and neurotypical individuals. Interactions and equal reciprocation are reliant on each individual comprehending the motions and interplay of the interaction, but neurotypical observers often bypass autistic explicit communication in favor of “normal” approaches, creating reciprocal failure.
Importantly, research by Crompton (2019) found that autistic-to-autistic interactions do not experience double empathy problems—the difficulty arises specifically in neurodiverse-neurotypical interactions. The profound isolation stems partly from being unseen and misunderstood on their own terms: UK research shows autistic people report four times the loneliness of the general population, with Swedish studies finding suicide rates ten times higher among “high-functioning” autistics than non-autistic people.
Mental Health Stigma: How Biogenetic Explanations Increase Rather Than Reduce Stigma
Mental health stigma—defined as severe social disapproval of characteristics deviating from cultural norms—operates through cognitive stereotyping, prejudicial attitudes, and discriminatory behavior. Paradoxically, the dominant strategy of comparing mental illness to physical illness (“mental illness is an illness like any other”), intended to reduce stigma and blame, actually increases stigma by suggesting neurodevelopmental difference as an objective biological “othering.”
This biogenetic framing has been shown to increase public desire for distance from labeled groups and inadvertently supports eugenic ideologies by making social exclusion appear naturally justified. The pathology paradigm frames psychological distress as internal individual pathology requiring individual medical treatment, historically leading to dehumanization and “chemical incarceration” of neurodivergent people.
Research consistently shows that people with limiting disabilities are 3.5 times more likely to experience serious violence, twice as likely to experience general violence, and significantly more likely to experience theft and hate crime than non-disabled adults. People with learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable to “mate crime” (abuse disguised as friendship) and may not recognize abuse due to normalization of mistreatment.
Life expectancy for women with learning disabilities is 18 years shorter than for women in the general population; for men it is 14 years shorter.
Neuronormativity: The Cultural Construction of “Normal”
Neuronormativity—the paradigm that a particular mode of cognition and perception is superior to others—is a historical and cultural construct, not a biological fact. This concept traces to the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, when science became obsessed with measuring, classifying, and categorizing. Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet developed the concept of l’homme moyen (the average man) based on measuring Scottish Highland soldiers and discovering a bell curve distribution.
Crucially, Quetelet labeled the peak of this curve as “ideal” rather than merely average, and deviations as “deformities or diseases.” His work invented the BMI—a measure still used today to medicalize normal human variation. Psychiatry emerged during this same period as a “monologue by reason about madness” (Foucault), adopting medical norms that distinguished health from disease.
Under this neuronormative paradigm, autism was shaped as a pathological deviation rather than a different way of processing. The DSM-5 criteria for autism list “deficits” in social-emotional reciprocity without acknowledging that reciprocity requires two people. The neurotypical side of the equation is overlooked: many autistic people report far fewer problems interacting with other autistic people, and neurotypical people clearly struggle to interact with autistic people. Yet these difficulties are construed as autistic people’s deficits.
There is no objective evidence that the level of support an autistic person needs determines their well-being while excluding the effects of a neuronormative society as a factor.
Intersectionality: Race, Disability, and Compounded Discrimination
The intersection of racism and ableism creates compounded disadvantage for Black autistic people in UK schools. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner found that “a Black Caribbean boy eligible for free school meals who also has special educational needs (SEN) is 168 times more likely to be permanently excluded than a white British girl without SEN.”
In the US, African-American children are 5.1 times more likely to be misdiagnosed with conduct disorders before receiving an autism diagnosis. Schools’ “zero tolerance” behavior policies, intensified by government pressure (2010 onwards, reinforced 2014), have directly increased autism-related exclusions: from 2,831 children with ASD excluded in 2011/12 to 4,485 in 2015/16—a 60% increase.
Zero tolerance, borrowed from criminal justice systems where African Caribbean communities are over-represented in arrests and sentencing, disproportionately affects Black and working-class students. Racial micro-aggressions—“verbal, non-verbal communication, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages”—accumulate as embodied sensory experiences: tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, language choices.
For Black autistic boys experiencing both autism-related anxiety and race-related anxiety, micro-aggressions compound stress. Behavior labeled as “challenging behavior” often reflects unmet sensory needs, anxiety, communication difficulties, and experiences of injustice rather than intentional misconduct.
Autism Is Not a Disorder Requiring Cure but Identity Requiring Acceptance
For many autistic people, discovering the neurodiversity framework is revelatory. Where mental illness labels failed to explain behaviors and experiences, the autism label resonates—going to the core of identity. The shift from “having” to “being” autistic—recognizing autism as identity rather than disease—is transformative. Being autistic becomes a source of pride rather than shame.
Distinguishing autism from co-occurring mental health issues is important: anxiety, depression, and trauma are treatable and addressable, while autism itself is hereditary neurodiversity requiring acceptance rather than cure. To be autistic is to challenge neurotypical norms through directness, focus, interests, and honesty.
Autistic people’s culture includes unique ways of relating: relationships between autistic people build faster and more successfully than with neurotypical people because there’s no need to explain or mask. Information transfer between autistic people shows little “noise”; between mixed neurotypes, information becomes corrupted and decays. Autistic people report higher relaxation and empathy when socializing with other autistic people. Eye contact is easier, stimming is normalized as part of culture and well-being.
To “be autistic,” to take off masks and be true to oneself, is not only taking back control of one’s life and celebrating culture—it is a political act of resistance against neuronormative oppression.
Applied Behavior Analysis: Contested Intervention and Long-Term Harm
Applied behaviour analysis (aba) is presented as targeting and changing behaviors while promoting skill learning and improving communication, earning it the label “gold standard” for autism interventions. However, autistic self-advocates intensively challenge ABA, arguing it removes autistic self-expression and identity. Specific practices criticized include removal of “stimming” and other self-regulation techniques that autistic individuals identify as essential for anxiety reduction and self-expression.
Some autistic adults who underwent ABA report post-traumatic stress symptoms. A seminal study by Kupferstein (2018) on post-ABA outcomes reflects experiences shared across the autistic community. The intensity of ABA can reach 40 hours per week, though research suggests 25 hours achieves similar outcomes. Former ABA therapists, termed “apologists,” have reconsidered their practice after observing harm, reporting feeling they had “supported abuse” by forcing continued participation from children unable to consent and by punishing behaviors that were natural reactions to stress and fear.
ABA’s core assumption—that autism itself requires correction through behavioral conditioning to make autistic people “seem normal” or “invisible”—conflicts with the neurodiversity framework that autism is a difference, not a defect. The long-term impact of ABA remains unexplored from the perspective of participants. Most peer-reviewed literature reflects practitioners’ views rather than participants’ lived experiences.
Research designed “with the input of participants” rather than about them is essential. The text identifies a critical gap: only autistic people who have experienced ABA can “truly understand and explain the long-term outcomes” and “verbalise what is unseen by professionals and parents.”
Understanding and Addressing “Challenging Behavior” Through Environmental and Emotional Lenses
Autistic behavior cannot be interpreted through a single lens of “good” or “bad” but rather as meaningful responses to internal and external circumstances. Common cultural assumptions—“He’s just doing it for attention,” “She should have known better,” “He knows exactly what he’s doing”—misattribute intentionality and malice, placing responsibility within the child rather than examining the interaction between child and environment.
Behavior functions as an outward expression of internal experience, requiring caregivers to interpret and respond appropriately. The framework of “threat” is more useful than “challenging behavior”: both autistic children and caregivers experience threat responses, which become mutually escalating. Recognizing when situations are controllable (problem-focused coping) versus uncontrollable (emotion-focused coping) helps caregivers adapt strategies.
Key underlying causes of distress include stress and anxiety occurring at unprecedented levels in response to perceived threats, change (even minor changes like clothing for PE can overwhelm some autistic children while major changes like moving house may not), escape/avoidance needs often due to sensory needs, transition times with uncertainty, mood and physical state (tiredness, hunger, illness reduce tolerance), sensory differences causing distress or pain, communication difficulties preventing expression of needs, and loss of control (frightening and upsetting).
Behavior that appears “challenging” often serves a regulatory or coping function—for example, hand-flapping or rocking manages stress, and preventing these behaviors increases release of damaging stress hormones. The formula “Autism + Environment = Outcome” demonstrates that autistic people thrive or fail depending on environment and others’ expectations.
Visual Supports and Structured Communication for Anxiety Reduction
Visual communication systems and structured approaches reduce anxiety by making the unpredictable predictable. Daily or weekly visual timetables using pictures or words help autistic people understand what will happen next, reducing anxiety caused by uncertainty. The example of Ali, who constantly asked about swimming lessons, shows how a visual timetable placed in the kitchen (showing swimming on Tuesday with other weekly activities) reduced his anxiety and constant questioning within a week.
“Now and Next” cards provide immediate structure for transitions. Comic strip conversations visually represent different communication levels—thoughts, feelings, words spoken—helping explore different perceptions of situations and building rapport. Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) and similar visual supports allow non-verbal or speech-limited autistic people to communicate complex needs and feelings.
The “Incredible Five-Point Scale” helps autistic people identify their emotional state on a numerical scale (1=relaxed/happy, 5=extremely anxious) and link numbers to physical sensations (e.g., “At a 5 my teeth clench and fists tighten”). Once a child recognizes their position on the scale, specific coping strategies can be developed for each level.
One mother used three fingers placed on a restaurant table to non-verbally communicate to her anxious daughter that she was “at a 3,” cueing their pre-planned strategy to return to the car for five minutes.
The Low-Arousal Approach: De-Escalation and Early Intervention
The low-arousal approach emphasizes staying calm and consistent rather than reactive responses to distress. Key principles include taking a break, reducing verbal and non-verbal communication, giving space, offering choices, and providing warnings. When a child is highly aroused and anxious, they process information poorly (just as any person does when angry or stressed), so excessive verbal engagement increases anxiety.
Early recognition of escalating anxiety allows redirection to quiet areas or calming activities before crisis occurs. Body language matters: direct eye contact can appear threatening when a child is already anxious. Avoiding confrontational words like “no” or “stop” reduces further arousal, particularly if the child associates them with anxiety. Personal space is critical—some autistic people are highly sensitive to touch and proximity.
Removing objects and other people from the room maintains safety and reduces the “audience effect” that increases anxiety. Once a child has calmed, they enter a recovery period where arousal decreases, and this is the appropriate time to offer comfort and reassurance. Physical exercise (strenuous walks, cycling, trampolining) has strong evidence for elevating mood and reducing stress and anxiety.
Jennifer’s case illustrates application: her post-school agitation was addressed by structuring 45 minutes of relaxation time involving listening to water dripping into a tin cup—her preferred sensory input—which helped regulate her arousal after an overstimulating school day.
Neuroqueering: Transforming Therapy and Practice from Pathology to Celebration
“Neuroqueering” means disrupting stigmatizing standards by “inviting the neurodiversity paradigm in and leaving the pathology paradigm out.” Nick Walker (2015) defines neuroqueering as “being neurodivergent and actively choosing to embody and express one’s neurodivergence (or refusing to suppress one’s embodiment and expression of neurodivergence) in ways that ‘queer’ one’s performance of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, occupation, and/or other aspects of one’s identity” and as “working to transform social and cultural environments in order to create spaces and communities in which engagement in [neuroqueering] is permitted, accepted, supported, and encouraged.”
Neuroqueering music therapy already occurs through using non-verbal communication, radicalizing “echolalia” (repetitive speech) into “artful repetition,” transforming “stereotypy” and “self-stimulatory behaviors” into “stimdance,” and celebrating stimming as “magnificent choreography.” The profession already practices “radical patience” through silence and waiting.
Implementation requires ensuring clients are not pressured toward cisnormativity or heteronormativity, learning new terms supporting fluent communication (e.g., “autigender,” “gendervague”), intentional learning from autistic people of color—especially autistic women and nonbinary people of color, and concrete environmental modifications including replacing flickering fluorescent lights with indirect natural light, providing baseball caps for light sensitivity, removing unnecessary electronics and their buzzing sounds, avoiding essential oils, creating safe spaces for stimming, and building sensory kits.
Instead of medical model objectives (forcing eye contact, suppressing stimming), neuroqueering focuses on areas the individual autistic person experiences as disabling or distressing. Bakan (2015) states: “It is about letting people be who they are, not trying to measure their aptitudes and change them in ways that will make them more ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ in the eyes of others.” Self-advocacy becomes a more suitable goal than compliance.
Universal Design and the REAL Principle for Systemic Inclusion
Universal Design (UD) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) assume human diversity and plan accordingly rather than treating “mythical norms” as default. Good autism practice benefits everyone: ramps help anyone with wheels; gender-neutral pronouns/toilets reflect inclusivity; intersectionality becomes ordinary planning. UD aligns with the anticipatory anti-discrimination duty of the Equality Act (2010).
The REAL model—Reliable, Empathic, Anticipatory, Logical—conceptualizes good autism practice within UD: do what you say reliably, empathize with the individual’s worldview, anticipate difficulties before they arise, and communicate clearly/logically to avoid ambiguity. Implementation requires equality impact assessments conducted by (paid) autistic researchers identifying ableism manifestations and solutions.
Critical questions for institutions include: Are recruitment processes non-discriminatory? Will inductions cover necessary information clearly? Will administrative systems work effectively? Will communication be clear and logical? Will sensory environments allow focused work? Will progression be supported without pigeonholing? Will role clarity and named mentors exist?
Person-Centered Counseling With Autism-Specific Adaptations
Person-Centered Counseling (PCC) grounded in Rogers’ three core conditions—empathy, unconditional positive regard (UPR), and congruence—offers significant potential for autistic clients. Many autistic people have experienced “heightened conditions of worth” from society and often negative stigma. PCC’s acceptance and prizing of clients could provide foundational healing.
Effective PCC adaptations include recognizing and respecting different body language and communication styles without imposing neurotypical norms (e.g., permitting non-eye contact, as research shows eye contact can activate stress pathways in autism), using clear, literal language and avoiding ambiguity, creating sensory-friendly environments (managing lighting, sounds, clutter; offering fidget toys), providing consistency in room layout, times, dates, considering more frequent shorter sessions or longer individual sessions (research suggests ~20 sessions optimal, not standard 6), using creative and visual communication methods (drawing, sand-tray, visual aids, writing, special interest incorporation), and allowing use of refreshments, humor, and appropriate self-disclosure to facilitate rapport.
A case study found that an autistic client discovered “for the first time in his life nobody judged” and experienced newfound congruence and agency. Mental health context is critical: autistic adults experience significantly higher rates of co-morbid psychiatric disorders than neurotypical populations: 44% anxiety (vs. 9.5% neurotypical), 44% mood disorder (vs. 12%), 70% major depression (vs. 36%), 44% self-harming (vs. 1.01%), and 25% suicide (vs. 0.17%).
Recognizing and Supporting Substance Use Vulnerability
Autistic adults deserve specialized, accessible addiction services recognizing elevated vulnerability. Social isolation, poor post-diagnostic services, and inadequate mental health support drive substance use. Mainstream addiction interventions may harm autistic individuals: forced group sessions and community-based programs trigger anxiety and dropout, leading to feelings of failure and alienation—perpetuating substance misuse cycles.
Rehabilitation services typically rely on social group living and group therapy with limited personal space and solitude. Autistic people may struggle with social/personal boundaries, converting thoughts to speech, knowing when to speak in groups, and recognizing others’ emotions in non-autistic group members. They need solitude, guidance, and social support adapted to their needs.
Substance use among autistic individuals may serve multiple purposes: increasing happiness and energy, reducing anxiety and depression, facilitating communication with peers, and gaining social capital within marginalized groups. However, contrary to earlier literature suggesting autism as protective, autistic individuals are vulnerable to substance use disorders—arguably more so than the general population.
The dual risks of elevated depression/anxiety and social isolation, combined with desire for acceptance and inclusion, make autistic people vulnerable. Mainstreaming increases vulnerability by exposing autistic adolescents to peer pressure without adequate support structures.
Accessing Services Through Active Strategy Development
Autistic people actively develop and employ diverse strategies across employment, service access, and social interaction, demonstrating agency and self-determination. The “trusted person” strategy: Over half of participants (51%) were accompanied to healthcare appointments, 38% had others phone on their behalf, and trusted companions helped with job applications, workplace interactions, and benefits navigation by translating forms and decoding implicit meanings.
This strategy parallels sign language interpreters for deaf people—framing support as “communication interpreters” could reduce workplace discrimination concerns. Masking sensory difficulties is like masking a broken leg or heart condition—not useful and potentially dangerous. Many autistic people, out of fear, attempt to “tough it out” in neuronormative environments.
Yet masking is one-sided: autistic people make unreasonable adjustments for others without reciprocal accommodations of autistic culture. In autistic-led spaces like conferences, retreats, or social occasions, autistic people remove masks; eye contact becomes easier, stimming becomes the norm—recognized as important to autistic culture, heritage, and well-being.
Research and preparation: Participants extensively researched situations before engagement, preparing detailed lists, studying benefits regulations, practising interviews, and requesting advance information. For healthcare, 66% prepared question lists; for employment, participants researched companies (45.6%) and practised interviews (44%); for benefits, participants became experts on regulations and processes. Some participants acknowledged this approach was “push[ing] self even if detrimental to health,” raising concerns about whether access should require this burden.
Technology as enabler: Email, online games, social media, and AAC devices provide alternatives to face-to-face socialising that was “very stressful” or impossible. Online games enabled socialising “on a level impossible in person,” Discord and Reddit communities provided networking, isolated participants felt “less lonely” through Facebook groups, and one participant noted online gaming was “the only way I can socialise without it becoming very stressful.”
AAC use reflects agency—participants with limited or variable speech used text-to-speech apps or typed communication to maintain autonomy. Prepared social scripts: Used by 57% of participants primarily to reduce anxiety in predictable social interactions. Scripts worked best when others followed them; when people deviated, participants panicked: “Pre-prepared social scripts lessen anxiety, but I panic when the other person deviates.”
Stimming and relaxation: To cope with stress in social situations, 60% used stimming and 31% used relaxation techniques including meditation. Using strengths and interests: Humour (73%) and talking about favourite interests (64%) were popular social strategies; identifying and using strengths (40%) worked best with people sharing similar interests.