Anti-ableism and scientific accuracy in autism research: a false dichotomy

Added on 25/06/2024

Type de contenu

Journal article of the type Perspective ( ; english)

Kristen Bottema-Beutel , Steven Kapp * , Noah Sasson , Morton Ann Gernsbacher , Heini Natri * , Monique Botha *
Anti-ableism and scientific accuracy in autism research: a false dichotomy published in the journal "Frontiers in psychiatry" Preprint, 8 pages , doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1244451

*Three co-authors had publicly identified as autistic. [Learn more about this mention]

- 18% of authors cited in the bibliography of this resource have publicly identified as autistic (84 out of 472 authors).
- 33% of references cited in this resource contain at least one author who has publicly identified as autistic (32 out of 98 references).

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Summary/Presentation

It was recently argued that autism researchers committed to rejecting ableist frameworks in their research may sacrifice “scientifically accurate” conceptualizations of autism. In this perspective piece, we argue that: (a) anti-ableism vs. scientific accuracy is a false dichotomy, (b) there is no ideology-free science that has claim to scientific accuracy, and (c) autism science has a history of false leads in part because of unexamined ableist ideologies that undergird researcher framings and interpretations of evidence. To illustrate our claims, we discuss several avenues of autism research that were promoted as scientific advances, but were eventually debunked or shown to have much less explanatory value than initially proposed. These research programs have involved claims about autism etiology, the nature of autism and autistic characteristics, and autism intervention. Common to these false leads have been ableist assumptions about autism that inform researcher perspectives. Negative impacts of this work have been mitigated in some areas of autism research, but these perspectives continue to exert influence on the lives of autistic people, including the availability of services, discourses about autism, and sociocultural conceptualizations of autistic people. Examining these false leads may help current researchers better understand how ableism may negatively influence their areas of inquiry. We close with a positive argument that promoting anti-ableism can be done in tandem with increasing scientific accuracy.

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