Abstract

Autism is a form of neurodiversity, currently characterized by differences compared to the neurotypical population across multiple domains including sensory processing (Proff et al., 2021), social communication style (Crompton et al., 2021), attentional processing (Murray et al., 2005), and movement and motor processing (Miller et al., 2021). Historically, autism (and thus autistic people) has been studied through a medical lens (Chapman and Carel, 2022), owing primarily to the characterization of autism as a disorder of childhood development. These conceptualizations led to dehumanizing narratives about autistic people (Botha) and have impacted on who we consider to be knowledgeable about what it is like to be autistic (Kourti). In recent years, there has been a shift toward recognition of autism as a form of neurodivergence; a naturally occurring variation in the human population that may lead to a differential profile of strengths and challenges in comparison to the non-autistic population (Den Houting, 2019). This shift has been primarily driven by the autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity movements (Kapp et al., 2013; Walker, 2021), which have campaigned for better understanding of autistic people.