top of page
GLD E-portfolio
Key Insight #2: Work
Autism can be portrayed very differently depending on who you talk to. While the diagnostic criteria are quite clear, the attitude around autism and its symptoms seem to vary. My experience in the classroom painted autism as a ‘disease,’ something ‘sad’ and ‘tragic,’ yet my research involving the autistic community had a completely different perspective, often highlighting the common misconceptions that people have about autism and how these misconceptions relate to functioning. Thus, my learning from both within the classroom and beyond the classroom taught me the importance of considering and listening to the autistic community and their experience with autism.
In my Behavioral and Mental Disorders class, PSYC 410, we had a discussion about the diagnostic criteria of autism and my professor’s experience with autistic people in her private practice. In this class, I learned about the diagnostic criteria of Autism Spectrum Disorder for the first time. As available in the first header of my notes from class, the diagnostic criteria are laid out quite clearly. However, my difficulty in the criteria, as you can see by the red portions of the text, is not in the diagnostic criteria itself, but with the examples of the diagnostic criteria. For instance, under the section titled “Case #1,” which is highlighted in yellow, I learned about a patient of the professors who was going through a divorce and lost her job seemingly all due to her undiagnosed autism. The professor insinuates that those with ASD cannot have a ‘normal’ life, and even if they are able to appear to have one, eventually their autism will interfere and wreck this ‘normal’ life. I learned through this example that the outlook for an individual with ASD is grim and that an autistic person cannot expect to be able to function and thrive on their own. Further on in the class, we learned of another ASD example the professor had with an autistic family member, labeled as “Case #2” in my notes and highlighted in blue. In this example, the person was described as a “sad and tragic case” because they were diagnosed with ASD and were nonverbal. Again, the example perpetuates the learning that autism is sad, autism is devastating to the functionality of life, autism is a diagnosis that leads to no hope for a ‘normal’ life. My learning in this classroom demonstrated a very negative stereotype that surrounds autism, an idea that those with ASD cannot function in society and should be viewed as tragic cases. This learning, this idea, did not sit right with me and left me wanting to explore how autistic people view their autism and how this contradicts with the perspective of the outside world. Thus, when tasked with my own research, I sought to explore the autistic community’s perspective on autism and what common myths they experience.
This research is displayed in my Honors Thesis, titled “Working with Autistic Students at Universities: What to do Differently,” an online workshop that aims to educate faculty and staff about autism from an autistic perspective. While my autistic perspective is important, to create this course, I needed to have heavily researched claims to back up my perspective. I achieved this by conducting an extensive literature review on ASD with a focus on newer articles since autism is an ever-changing field. However, the research I reviewed failed to ever ask the autistic community about their experiences related to common misconceptions and myths. Due to my experience in the classroom, I was curious to see if other autistics had similar experiences or if I was an anomaly. To answer this question, if other autistic individuals experience misconceptions and myths surrounding autism in their daily lives, I asked the question “what are common misconceptions of autism?” on an autistic support page on Facebook (due to privacy reasons, I cannot name the support page) and received over 100 replies. The artifact above has a chart that summarizes the replies as well as my reflections on the misconceptions that were uncovered. For me, the most significant aspect of this research was the number of negative stereotypes that surround ASD. As the chart demonstrates, I learned that many autistics experience the misconceptions that they “can’t live normal lives” or that “if you are nonverbal then you can’t think.” These two notions that are completely false yet are perpetuated in our society. While the results were enlightening about the misconceptions and myths that abound around autism, the results also provided key insight on the autistic community’s perception of autism. All of the comments highlighted how ridiculous these claims were and how the autistic community is so much better than the myths that surround it. Thus, I embedded this information into the online workshop to highlight the importance of listening to the autistic community. Overall, I learned about the myths that surround ASD yet also about the importance of listening to the autistic community because it is only possible to discover that these claims are myths when one listens to the community that is able to dispute them.
My research and my learning of the myths of autism from the autistic community confronted my learning in my PSYC 410 class. My class taught me that an ASD diagnosis means that autistics cannot function in everyday society, that being nonverbal is sad and tragic. Yet, what I learned in my research indicated the opposite. The research, the voices from the autistic community, disputed these ideas as myths, misconceptions that are false and degrading. My research, especially in light of what I learned in PSYC 410, highlighted the importance of listening to the autistic community. Only by listening to the people who actually experience autism are we able to break down the negative stereotypes that surround it. Only by listening are we able to learn the truth, not what society thinks is the truth.
bottom of page