About Me and ‘Autism and Us’
Dwelling in the intersections of multiple, sometimes contrasting perspectives
My four-year-old, not-yet-speaking son Joaquin was diagnosed with autism a year ago, in 2022. Following the diagnosis, I had a very enlightening, perspective-shifting year of reading and asking around as much as I could about autism as a condition, a neurotype, and a disability.
All three terms apply — condition, neurotype, and disability — each with their enabling and limiting meanings, their own pros and cons of usage. I mention this because as a literature academic who has read disability studies before as part of my work, it still surprises me to dive afresh into autism discourse, this time with newfound lenses of urgency and parental experience.
The intellectual, political, and linguistic landscape surrounding autism (and neurodivergence more broadly) is throbbing with, what for me as an academic, are signs of life: unsettled debates, clashing voices. What will bother me, if and where I find it, is too much settling with long-accepted knowledges (or what has gotten status as “knowledge”). So far, with regards to autism discourse, that is not lately the case.
Talk is getting intense around old assumptions. Narratives are thickening with stories so specific that they break down…
