The autism predicament: models of autism and their impact on autistic identity

Abstract

Autism has presented a new frontier challenging how society understands disability. This article reviews the historical contexts of disability and autism along with a brief overview of the concept of ‘identity’ within the context of disability, and how autism is understood within the medical and social models of disability considering how these models may impact autistic identity building. Neither of these models adequately encompasses the diverse autistic experience. Instead, a predicament model of autism is proposed to better understand autistic experience. This model facilitates a nuanced, multidimensional understanding of the lived autistic experience and all of the gifts and challenges that may go along with it. An advantage of this model is that it moves beyond the current problematic understanding of autism as an overly simplified low-to-high functioning ‘spectrum’; instead, it reframes autism as an individualized, highly variable predicament.

Points of interest

• In the medical model, autism is a medical disorder. This model has been criticized for over-focusing on what the person cannot do instead of what they can do.

• In a social model, autism is a different ‘way-of-being’ that results in autistic persons being excluded from society because they often behave differently from the ‘norm’.

• This article argues that these models do not adequately explain the vast differences in what ‘being autistic’ can mean and suggests that a predicament model of disability is an improved way of understanding autism.

• Thinking of autism as an individualized ‘predicament’ allows for more answers to the question ‘What does being autistic mean?’

• A benefit of this model is that it disregards the ‘spectrum’ metaphor, which ranks autistic persons on a ‘low-to-high’ functioning scale. Instead, the predicament model of autism embraces the individuality of each autistic experience without comparing it to a standard of ‘normal’.

Keywords:

• Autism
• identity
• predicament
• neurodiversity
• disability models

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the insightful feedback from the reviewers, the invaluable mentorship of Dr. Linda M. Hunt, and the thoughtful listening ear of Lily A. Anderson-Chavarria. The final version of this article has been strengthened greatly by their efforts.

Disclosure statement

The author has no conflicts of interest to report.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the DO-PhD Program in the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University.

Funding

This work was supported by the DO-PhD Program in the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University.