We Need To Shift The Communication Burden from Autistic People
The notion that autistic people have social communication deficits is a cornerstone of the diagnostic criteria.
Yet there’s a profound injustice in assuming that the responsibility for miscommunication can be laid at the feet of the autistic person at one end of it. Labelling autistic communication styles as deficient assumes neurotypical communication styles are not only superior, but normal and beyond question.
But all these “deficits” tell us is what is considered important or valuable or necessary by neurotypical standards: eye contact, choreographed facial expressions, still hands, indirect language.
It’s a given that neurotypical communication practices are preferred without any explanation why. It’s only those of us who veer from them who have to answer for ourselves. Worse, autistic children are still being subjected to coercive forms of “therapy” that force them to conform to neurotypical ways of being as they are made to believe there is no other acceptable option.
The double empathy problem, a theory developed by autistic academic Dr Damian Milton, explains that communication difficulties arise from differences between…
