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A young girl in a red dress arranging blocks on a table
A young girl in a red dress arranging blocks on a table.
ABA Reform: Distinguishing Meaningful Change and “Neurodiversity Lite”

ABA Reform: Distinguishing Meaningful Change and “Neurodiversity Lite”

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I’ve been doing some more thinking on that most controversial of controversial autism questions: ABA. Right now, most neurodiversity advocates don’t trust the idea that any sort of ABA intervention could be a good thing, and why should they?  Far too many ABA interventionists have been pointing to a few modest changes to their programs – like removing aversives, or adding some cosmetic “neurodiversity lite” jargon – and claiming that this makes their programs adequate and ethical.  But that’s not…

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Black and white image of a wooden puppet suspended in the air by four strings.
Building Self-Determination in Childhood

Building Self-Determination in Childhood

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I’ve previously written about the importance of giving neurodivergent people more self-determination in childhood.  Indeed, I think all children, including the neurotypicals, could probably benefit from increased self-determination and autonomy.  Isn’t it rather strange that entering adulthood in our society, legally speaking, gives one full rights to autonomy overnight where previously one’s autonomy was legally minimal?  An abrupt transition, for sure!  Why not give people more practice exercising autonomy in childhood? It certainly seems like giving more opportunities for self-determination…

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Children sitting at tables eating prepackaged lunches.
Sensory Sensitivities and “Picky Eating”

Sensory Sensitivities and “Picky Eating”

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I’m a so-called “picky eater,” like many autistic people. Nowadays, as an adult, this is no problem.  I have a system that works for me.  I buy foods I like, prepare them, and eat them.  I do try to cover a variety of food groups and so on, but I am not going to agonize over not being able to stomach some particular food or another – I’ll just avoid it. This is a bit different from the situation early…

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A busy office with people sitting in front of computer monitors. Work areas are not separated by cubicles. Illumination is provided by exposed light bulbs hanging overhead.
Post-COVID Transition Anxiety and Autistic Burnout

Post-COVID Transition Anxiety and Autistic Burnout

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For more than a year now, we’ve been dealing with the challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic.  This has had a devastating impact, both in general and in particular on many disabled people. Most obviously, COVID-19 has killed millions of people worldwide, and neurodivergent communities have been disproportionately impacted.  The death toll among people with intellectual disabilities in residential group homes and institutional settings has been catastrophically high.  Unfortunately, discrimination against neurodivergent people – again, particularly people with intellectual disabilities…

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Revisiting monotropism

Revisiting monotropism

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The monotropism account of autism – which was introduced by Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser, and Wenn Lawson in 2005 – is, within the autistic adult community, probably the dominant theoretical approach towards understanding what autism is.  Many autistic people – myself included – find monotropism to be quite a bit more consistent with our personal experiences than other theories of autism.  I suspect this might have something to do with the fact that the monotropism account was developed by autistic…

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A young child in a green shirt
Behaviour Intervention: Some Key Terms

Behaviour Intervention: Some Key Terms

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Hopefully the fact this post has “behaviour intervention” in the title should act as a content warning to anyone who might find a discussion about ABA triggering, but just to be sure, here’s one now. – – Not long ago, I was complaining about the way advocates and researchers/professionals often talk past one another in the field of ABA.  I grumbled that terms like “ABA” were constantly being understood in different ways, so that even if these groups could get…

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Supports, Burdensomeness, and Dependence

Supports, Burdensomeness, and Dependence

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Research suggests that volunteering and helping others can be beneficial for the mental health of the helper.  This effect is believed to stand above and beyond any tendency for those with better mental health to be more likely to volunteer for things in the first place. Conversely, dependence on others and being a recipient of help can be bad for mental health.  Indeed, a major component of the dominant interpersonal theory of suicide suggests that those who perceive themselves as…

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A photograph depicting a large crowd of young people at an event featuring displays by different vendors at tables.
Networking and Planning Careers

Networking and Planning Careers

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Have you heard the term “hidden curriculum” before?  It refers to everything that is not explicitly taught in a place of learning. One important part of the hidden curriculum in a university – the setting where people are getting an education in preparation for undertaking a professional career – is how to actually go about getting a career.  Universities teach people academic information – facts, theories, and so forth.  Information about how the world works.  We don’t really discuss how…

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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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3D scatterplot depicting cognitive ability, anxiety, and discomfort to loudness scores of autistic and non-autistic individuals
The autism constellation

The autism constellation

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For a long time, we’ve used the metaphor of a spectrum to describe autism.  This is a metaphor that has worked fairly well for us in many ways.  It alerted us to the fact that instead of being a discrete category, there’s a lot of heterogeneity and variability within autism. Indeed, I would argue that autism lacks biological reality – it’s a social construct, a category that we made up, and its boundaries have shifted over space and time.  I’m…

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