Talk:Autism

Obviously several of us have been arguing in circles for some time now, so I have opened up a Dispute Resolution request.

Parties I have named besides myself are @Димитрий Улянов Иванов, @Ó.Dubhuir.of.Vulcan, @HarmonyA8, @TempusTacet, @WhatamIdoing, @FactOrOpinion and @GreenMeansGo. I understand that participation in this process is voluntary, and I don't believe it is restricted to those named (I could have include many more handles if I'd gone back a bit further - please chime in if there's anyone you think should be included).

Discussions should of course be "civil, calm, concise, neutral, objective and as nice as possible."

Of necessity, the request is couched in pretty broad terms; underlying disputes have surfaced in so many different ways, over so many years, that obviously the recent tensions are just the tip of the iceberg. I am aware that in general, it would be better to keep requests shorter, but I wanted to make sure that anyone coming in could make some sense of what's happening here. Oolong (talk) 16:04, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I think RIT RAJARSHI might wish to know as well, as they'd placed an "unbalanced" tag on the article, which was quickly reverted by Димитрий Улянов Иванов, leading RIT RAJARSHI to voice concern at the Teahouse about the imbalanced article content and contentious Talk page discussions (which is what drew me to this Talk page). FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks for telling me but I am highly sensitive person unable to handle mental stress and conflicts. I also have privacy concerns. And also I get scared if I get a lot of public attention. I am NOT just good with tension filled situation. I have specifically mentioned on several places that I wanted to quit this discussion (at least for now); as my mental health condition is not supporting. I get easily influenced by other peoples' negative emotions and criticisms. I still think the article is misleading and lacking a balanced view, but I expect the editors to be kind and empathetic enough to try to understand the harms of a scientistic-reductionist view of human beings, the harms of strictly medical model or a deficit centric tragedy model. Noted neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky also discussed the failures of "categorical thinking" and "behaviourism" to look at a living creature. Since communication involve more than 1 person, all debates regarding ANY communication "disorder" involve more than one group of people; how mild or severe the "disorder" [Sic] may appearently look like. There will be fundamental debates, relativity, and subjectivity regarding whom we consider as the "norm", the "healthy" one... which is the "disordered" one. To deny that using votes or consensus is to deny reality of the situation. Debates and arguments are not suitable things for me. I pray the editors to try to understand the situation with empathy (not sympathy)... I am spending time in spirituality, art, meditation, etc. in order to heal...

I pray the editors esp. on medicalization side, to accept the other viewpoints, and acknowledge the duality of the issue. It is not that there are some "pathological symptoms" and some "non-pathological symptoms". It is the same set of symptoms that can be described in 2 different ways. And even after adopting to a "Strength based model" than deficit centric, you will still be able to provide supports, services, and accommodations.

Regarding behaviourist "evidence based therapies", In a previous comment (I am too exhausted to locate it) ... I explicitly mentioned a few quotes from Hari Srinivasan, who is a mostly nonspeaking Autist. I also posed several questions regarding people who might be seen as severely biologically impaired from a majority viewpoint, but they adopted a social model approach. You may locate that comment for further understanding.

I ask for forgiveness from all editors from all the sides. I am not well. And I regret stepping into this debate. I can't take this tension and negativity. My mental health is rapidly deteriorating. Please forgive and exempt me from the negativity of this subject matter.

RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 19:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Hey, sorry to see you dragged in again (but I appreciate @FactOrOpinion's good wishes here!) - I know how stressful this kind of thing can be, and I got your message that you didn't want to be part of this if you can help it. Thank you for your efforts to date, anyway! Oolong (talk) 20:02, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

just FYI... I am unable to be a part of it... brcause too much mental pressure, negativity, and public attentions/ privacy concerns. Its not like I have no willingness to say... but I am unable to bear the emotional cost of it. I ask for forgiveness from all the editors and scholars in concerned interestsRIT RAJARSHI (talk) 20:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Participation is 100% optional. Do not worry about this. I hope that you feel better soon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 21 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Honestly, as chaotic as it is and as a lurker who doesn't use wikipedia all that much, in defense of Димитрий Улянов Иванов and a few others, from my interpretation, I generally don't really see Димитрий Улянов Иванов (and other users more or less on his side) to be in the wrong here, and I certainly don't believe Димитрий Улянов Иванов in particular is intending to create much conflict, as opposed to just wanting the article to follow the scientific consensus, (though to be fair, that's certainly not to say I would like to see it as a bit less personally confrontational from certain users on all sides at times). I also know that many of the citations given to provide opposing perspectives really are questionable and their inclusion of which from my understanding feels only like it is done specifically to highlight neurodiversity and anti-psychiatry perspectives the editors identify with to contrast that of the mainstream medical model which is found by those, perhaps "partisan" users as "problematic" or "abelist", focusing mostly on that basis to bolster their own edits regardless of potential own conflicting POV, and less about the exact validity, or scientific credibility of their citations in relation to the rest of the articles data, including the rewritings and removals of cited material, even despite their ideological aims sometimes being directly in conflict with that of the current scientific consensus. So, in general, while I do agree there is a serious risk of the article becoming imbalanced and sharing undue weight because some people want to hold the article towards a certain slant, from my own point of view from some random lurker, I really only see it from one side mostly, although to give credit, I certainly don't think that in anyway means there hasn't been non-productive, non-constructive conflict from certain individuals of either side, so I do think seeking to rectify that is understandable, if perhaps obscuring that one sides objections to numerous, fairly recent and heavily conflicting additions/sources, is generally valid. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 17:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I disagree with almost all of that, but let's leave that to one side.

I just wanted to flag up one thing, because I think it's important: I haven't seen a single person put up anything promoting anti-psychiatry perspectives. Have you? I might have missed something. But neurodiversity is a very separate movement from anti-psychiatry, much though they might share a few of the same concerns. In my experience anti-psychiatry folks are just as hostile to neurodiversity-based perspectives as anyone on the pro-psychiatry side! Oolong (talk) 20:07, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi there, regarding Anti-psychiatry, I had understood them to be ideologically adjacent similar to the "mad pride" movement. If I was incorrect in my assessment then feel free to ignore that as a misunderstanding on my part. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 20:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi, although there are similarities, there are also drastic differences between radical antipsychiatry, criticism of psychiatry/psychiatric survivor movements, mad pride, and neurodiversity movements. The philosophies or reasoning may sound apparently same, but there are differences both in the principle and history.

Antipsychiatry:

• It has been claimed at least a section of anti-psychiatry believers are also connected to "Church of scientology" and similar organizations. I don't know its truth.
• Anti-psychiatry groups often oppose any kind of label, including Autism.
• They are absolute abolitionists
• Some of the supporters also claimed to support various conspiracy theories.

Criticism of psychiatry + Psychiatric survivors moment

• It addresses issues like death of great literary [[Earnst Hemingway]] or similar negative outcomes.
• Critic of malpractice
• Critic of existing bad practices
• At least a section are reformists than absolute abolitionists.

Mad Pride

• Mostly based on opposition of normal-abnormal judgement.
• At least a subsection is against all therapy and medications.
• A subsection is seriously affected by psychiatric misunderstanding or existing bad practices.

Neurodiversity movements

• Very often framed from a personal and civil liberty aspect.
• Embraces diagnoses, self-identifications, and other non-derogatory labels instead of throwing them off
• Puts importance on various aspect of life, including education, learning, economics, etc.
• Embraces some form of therapy and medication, but more power goes to lived experience and insight of the patient party than imposed rapid-fire treatments.

The diffferent disabled communities also differ in their principles. Such as Autistic communities and Down Syndrome communities have many similarities as well as some differences in their principles.

It looks like many editors are confused about so many ideas those looks like they are closely related but has distinctive principles and histories. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 20:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks for this.

My sense is that there's very little awareness of anti-psychiatry in the neurodiversity movement; where they interface at all, it seems critical to the point of hostility. Damian Milton debated with Sami Timimi one time about eight years ago, which showed that the latter had failed to understand many rather basic things about neurodiversity; Robert Chapman spends a fair chunk of Empire of Normality criticising anti-psychiatrists, especially those coming from a capitalist-friendly angle; the Mad in America blog (which I take to be broadly aligned with anti-psychiatry, but that's based on a surface reading) recently ran a short, hostile series on neurodiversity which, again, seemed to be based largely on misunderstandings.

Extremely unhelpful for anyone to assume that these movements are closely aligned. Oolong (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Firstly, thank you Rit Rajarshi for taking your time to clarify a more nuanced explanation of the various sides, while there certainly is overlap. If I were to give a little more reasoning behind my previous edit.

I would however disagree with Oolong however from what I have researched of the movements, because the movements such as neurodiversity as well as other, older "anti-medicalist" model movements are for the most part, incredibly decentralized in nature with their own individual theorists and advocates who share their own unique perspectives and influences, and often may even conflict even with other adherents of their own movements on the specifics of the nature of disability (or a lack thereof).

Instead I think it would be much more generalizable to say these groups were all vague and broad social movements, who as mental-activist groups all have found themselves loosely adjacent to each other in contrast to the more medically recognized and "orthodox" health authorities who adhere to the "pathological/biomedical model", and as such have shared much cross-pollination as well as mutual critique between each others and only sometimes forming alliances between certain individual groups or factions rather than representative of the movement as a whole.

Perhaps me referring certain arguments as "anti-psych" or "something akin to anti-psych" could be seen as risking conflating the various different diverse movements and lumping them together which might risk misrepresenting the other movements, even when there is indeed some general overlap. Which is an argument I think is a perfectly reasonable argument and I do appreciate @RIT RAJARSHI for wanting to help take some of his time out to specify this. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 00:58, 22 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Just wanted to mention one more thing I felt like I should also mention. I do think in practice it is kinda hard to separate these movements too much either since they often don't have any central belief system and thus certain advocates from one field may borrow aspects from another (see the neurodiversity advocates cross-pollination with mad-pride) but I do think it's more professional and less personal and confrontational to not conflate the movements together as mostly equivalent despite that. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 01:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Regards. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 20:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

RIT RAJARSHI, please see WP:NOR, WP:NOT#ORIGINAL, and WP:NOT#FORUM. This talk page is for discussion of editorial improvement to the article content, not long-winded personal suppositions (some of which are wrong) about vague classes of people in an attempt to promote a particular viewpoint. If you are looking for Facebook, it's over there ↗ ... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

If people are under misapprehensions about terms and positions relevant to this page, and they are affecting how they approach edits and Talk page discussions, I don't see how it would be inappropriate to correct these errors. Oolong (talk) 08:50, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

With all due good faith, I think at very worst I only made a minor blanket statement which I was quick to clarify. I don't think it's that big of an issue worth focusing on. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 11:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

It looks less like a forum diacussion and looks more like clarifying the audience on what they are talking about. 2409:40E0:1F:E636:.&checktime(8000,0,0,':'):0 (talk) 17:53, 25 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Oolong: That's still meta-discussion about editors and their viewpoints and understandings, not about how to improve the content in this article for readers, so it's a discussion for WT:AUTISM, which is where editors interested in this topic and its intersections can work out how to collaborate better to produce article coverage that is both consistent from article to article and consistent in a WP:DUE manner with WP:RS (and particularly WP:MEDRS). That's not going to be the sort of discussion and compromise/consensus process that is going to differ substantively on a page-by-page basis, and it is also incredibly long-winded and sometimes heated, so it is not helpful to fight about these matters, and re-re-re-fight about them repetitively, at the talk pages of articles that are within the topical scope. Even at WT:AUTISM, this sort of discussion needs to re-focus on editorial production of reader-facing content, not ideological positions about different approaches to or definitions of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and mental health generally. We have WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policies for good reasons. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

The suggestion that neurodiversity is aligned with antipsychiatry has come up more than once on this Talk page, from different editors; and navigating ideological position is absolutely central to the editorial production of reader-facing content on pages such as this one.

It seems to me that it is worth correcting misconceptions on this Talk page when they are directly relevant to people's views about what should be in the article. Oolong (talk) 07:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Personally I think a simple clarification or a link to the previous post would be much more constructive. The mention was clearly not done dishonestly nor in bad-faith, as it was clarified as a misconception, as having vague relations to each other both historically and today rather than being the generally the same.

To keep re-opening the discussion from that when it was already clarified beforehand might come off as a little bit petty or confrontational. Especially since it hyper focuses on tiny part of my overall argument which was a minor mistake said in passing, filling up the talk page with THAT as opposed to focusing on what I really was trying to say, and my argument that some claims of a slanted article are made by users who I saw as having a degree of confirmation bias from their own contributions, edits and removals in the article which itself slants the article to a clear narrative. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Димитрий Улянов Иванов, Ó.Dubhuir.of.Vulcan, I have no experience with the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard (though I've occasionally browsed discussions there), and perhaps you don't either. My understanding is that the moderator is waiting for each editor to explicitly say "whether you would like to try moderated discussion (mediation) in order to resolve content disputes," where that includes agreeing to the rules the moderator establishes (some already on the page, some perhaps added later). You might find it useful to read the usual DRN rules, one of which is to check back on the DRN page at least every 48 hours. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to consistently respond within 48 hours. Hopefully that is not a strict requirement. Димитрий Улянов Иванов (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I suggest that you ask the moderator about that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Just posting a heads up that Robert McClenon has posted a new comment to the Dispute Resolution Request for this article. He needs people to address his comment, so that he can assess whether DRN is a good venue for discussion of the conflict / whether discussion there is likely to be helpful. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:52, 25 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Thank you! Димитрий Улянов Иванов (talk) 18:40, 26 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I have been off here and not editing for a very long time but I have been watching and this is not an easy situation to solve. It all boils down to the rules of Wikipedia and what constitutes a reliable source first and foremost. Now what we have here is a situation where reliable sources are supporting both sides of the argument. So in essence both should be included in the article and in a neutral manner. Now the minute we start talking about deleting stuff in what has been proposed, we are crossing the line into personal opinion or a political slant - and that has to be shut off pronto as NPOV has gone once that line is crossed. ND is a fluid subject and off wiki politics is causing this leading to an abundance of sources - some of which are not reliable (blogs are a great example). A lot has changed since the DSM-IV and balance is being lost in the shuffle as people (not necessarily those involved here) push certain interpretations that might be right but need sources. It's a very touchy subject that needs outside help and the DR should help if everyone decides to get involved. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Never forget that. Let's get this balanced on the sources. Not everyone will be happy with the result but if the sources say this AND that, it is what we go with. That is what an encyclopedia should be. Aspie Lover (talk) 01:12, 21 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Right! The extremely tricky thing is getting the balance right, and I haven't found anything in Wikipedia's guidelines which comes close to resolving the question of how to do that in a dispute of this specific nature. Hence the many open questions in my essay about all this...

The only bit I'm not sure about in what you've posted is about deleting stuff - I'm not sure how to interpret this, and my perspective is that the main autism entry is at least 2-3000 words longer than it should be, while also missing many important subtopics that should clearly be in; we really need to make some collective calls about what needs to go. It does help that there is currently a lot of content which ought to be brought down to summary length because there are already separate articles covering those topics extensively, though. Oolong (talk) 10:36, 21 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Both the 'medical' and 'neurodiversity' viewpoints on autism admit that there is a difference in brain architecture and function between autistic and allistic people and that these affect behaviour and sensory reactions to stimuli. Both recognise that genetic and environmental influences are important facets of the etiology of autism. It is the interpretation of these facts where difference lies. The medical paradigm views autism as a pathology, with symptoms and deficits - the description of which can, quite easily, stray into being offensive to many autistic people. The neurodivergence paradigm sees autism as part of he natural variation in humanity, with, what are otherwise described as symptoms and deficits being described as merely differential traits. Additionally, the neurodivergence view recognises that autism can confer advantages, such as heightened abilities to concentrate on a task (pathologised as 'hyperfixation'), an enhanced eye for detail and unusual abilities in problem solving.

In my view, any topic that has two major interpretations or theories being used to describe its core features, in simultaneous existence, requires that each interpretation is given as close to equal weight and coverage as possible. That is, if any respectable encyclopaedic treatment of the topic is envisaged. Both the medical and neurodivergence viewpoints have numerous reputable scholarly publications behind them, the only difference being that neurodivergence is a newer concept and therefore has fewer publications. Urselius (talk) 10:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Wikipedia's official view is that neutral point of view (NPOV) means "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

As far as I understand it, the central question here is around what counts as reliable sources, and how do we decide? Whose voices count towards this assessment?

I think it is worth saying that my perception is that some of the combativity has been motivated by anxiety about people doing things which nobody has expressed any intention to do. Perhaps it could be worth being quite explicit about what is actually being argued for, but it would be helpful to also have a clearer picture of what exactly people are afraid of happening here. I don't believe that anybody here is coming from an anti-science perspective, for example. I haven't seen any suggestion anywhere of people wanting to include things that are contradicted by empirical findings. I hope this can be borne in mind in future discussions.

While you suggest that when two major interpretations exist, each should be given "as close to equal weight and coverage as possible", this isn't quite how Wikipedia interprets neutrality: rather, "avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects."

However, it is not clear, as above, whose voices count towards this assessment. "Widely supported" among whom? One extreme position would be that only clinicians' voices should matter in this assessment. A slightly less extreme position would be that all relevant scientists (or other researchers?) should also count. I am sure that many other people would say that the view of the 'autism community' are the most important ones here: clinicians and researchers with relevant experience, yes, but also autistic people, their families, and people who work with them in non-clinical contexts. Another extreme position might be that only autistic people should really be important in deciding which sources are reliable.

Perhaps we can find a compromise that most of us can live with.

I suppose another approach would be to ask "what do scientists working in the field think about how much autistic people, for example, should be listened to about autism?" - I don't expect that we'll find definitive answers to that, though; I don't know that anybody has done a survey study asking researchers about this, but it is certainly true that many prominent autism researchers by now have spoken up about the importance of listening to autistic people, and how much they have learned about doing so. For example, "Making the future together: Shaping autism research through meaningful participation" (Fletcher-Watson et al 2018) calls for "the development of participatory research skills among the autism research community and the facilitation of greater autistic leadership of, and partnership in, research. Such work, if delivered to a high standard, is likely to lead to better translation into practice and improved outcomes for autistic people and those who support them."

§

It is interesting to note that apparently a neutral point of view "neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity."

So, we should be avoiding language that disparages autistic people. That seems worth bearing in mind.

It is also good to notice that according to the Manual of Style - which mentions the preferences of patient groups as a motivation for these sorts of choices - "Words like disease, disorder, or affliction are not always appropriate."

There are questions here that Wikipedia's explicit policies and guidelines don't provide unambiguous answers for, but it seems clear to me that there is a strong case for toning down the pathologisation considerably, while ensuring that the scientific evidence that exists is fairly and accurately represented, and different viewpoints are represented in as balanced a way as possible. Oolong (talk) 18:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

I'm not sure whether everyone participating at the DRN has seen Robert McClenon's request that we "read DRN Rule G. This is the new set of rules for this mediation." Just a heads up. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:15, 30 December 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Note: I have re-instituted the {{unbalanced}} tag on the article, pending resolution of its imbalances, as we seem to have a general agreement that it is in fact unbalanced. Anyone who thinks it's okay as it is might like to refer to the results of the survey I ran, in which the 31 respondents who'd seen the page gave it an average of only 3.25 out of 10 for how well it reflects their own experiences and understanding of autism.

Anyone wishing to follow the ongoing dispute resolution process should know that it now has its own subpage where a redrafted version of the lead has been proposed, as well as a separate page for relevant back-and-forth discussions.

--Oolong (talk) 08:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

General agreement? I think there's certainly a fair bit of disagreement with how the current autism article is right now, but I really am not sure if it's really enough to qualify as "unbalanced", at best (while still trying to remain non-partisan), I could perhaps say the subject is still fairly contentious or perhaps controversial as there seems to be major clashes between bio-medicalist and neurodiverse advocates in the discussion page, and which sometimes have become very heated.

However, to specifically add the "unbalanced" tag, especially without any way to confirm a true general consensus or a way to tally the various users and contributors here who would agree with such an edit (many of which, including myself are also on the spectrum) seems to make me somewhat skeptical of any genuine signaling of any true consensus for the current state of the article, such skepticism is further bolstered for me from the potential significant personal or ideological biases that may occur in a small, self-organized survey ran without proper clarification for wikipedia users outside of their circle, by someone who holds a clear (self-admitted) personal bias as a vocal internet activist for neurodiversity, and who may wish to use such to push certain partisan worldviews onto the wiki through implying there article is unfairly slanted against ideology.

As an autistic, and as someone who has to live and has a certain grasp of the complexity and nuances of those who have and struggle with the condition of autism; While I do think it's incredibly important, even noble to collect information and opinions from general users across the globe, especially those on the spectrum so as to get a wider array of perspectives in relation the overall quality of the article. I really can't help but question the validity of your Survey, and if it's actually truly doing that and reflecting the wide array of perspectives including those on the spectrum who otherwise wouldn't have been able to speak at all, or only propping up ones current confirmation bias with like-minded individuals who share said partisan agenda, and considering my overall feeling of sketchiness with the overall survey, I am slightly leaning towards the latter. this may seem in poor-faith, though remembering that the survey was presented and used as here as if it were solid proof when it was a small survey of a couple dozen people self-organized by a social media activist without any notification from outside your current circle, I find it somewhat hard to find the justifications for such a tag with strong implications as perfectly genuine. GigaMigaDigaChad (talk) 14:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I think that the important thing is that the dispute resolution process, especially the opinion of the uninvolved editor in charge, has come to the conclusion that the article requires extensive redrafting in order that it more faithfully reflects contemporary views on autism (scientific, sociological and cultural). This essentially is the same as saying that the current version is 'unbalanced'. That the current version gives medical usage unique authority, and sets it above some scientific and most sociological views, is both obvious and unquestionable. The 'unbalanced' tag is a temporary measure, until rebalancing of the text can occur. It is there to inform readers that what they are reading might not be an appropriately balanced treatment. Urselius (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@Urselius precisely this. Thank you. Oolong (talk) 16:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@GigaMigaDigaChad the survey was shared surprisingly widely, not only in my circles, but obviously it is just a small, informal survey.

Without the evidence of a long stream of people coming to this Talk page and giving evidence on how unbalanced the entry is, I wouldn't think the survey on its own would be enough - even though it is so overwhelmingly negative, and the people who filled it in are mainly people with substantial personal experience and subject knowledge.

But as it is, it would be quite clear without the survey that the article is unbalanced.

--Oolong (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Article content is decided based on the weight of reliable sources, especially WP:MEDRS on medical topics, not by the personal opinions of survey respondents. Unless there is clear evidence from sources and widespread agreement by editors that the article is flawed, it should not be tagged. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:49, 13 February 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

You seem not to have followed the dispute resolution process at [1]. The unbalanced tag has not been inserted on the grounds of this survey but because there are many reliable sources supporting the neurodiversity viewpoint that have emerged in recent years which are not represented appropriately in the article. In the dispute resolution process, there is a widespread agreement that the article is unbalanced, lengthy discussions persist as to how much it is unbalanced. Therefore I reinstated the tag. LogicalLens (talk) 02:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Although I work with adults with ASD as a clinical psychologist, I do not have ASD myself so I know that my understanding of the lived experience of adults with ASD (including their childhood and adolescent experiences) is naturally very limited.

→ Question: Whether you have ASD or not, what films, TV series, podcasts, videos, books, journal articles or other sources would you recommend to better understand the lived experience of people with ASD?

• Note: I am looking for quality sources, whether or not they meet Wikipedia standard reliable source or medical reliable source requirements, although Wikipedia's RS requirements are often a good marker of quality.
• Feel free to mention sources that purport to portray autsim accurately, but (in your opinion) fail to do so.
• Please keep your recommendations succinct and without engaging in the important—but not relevant here—debate about how to define and describe autism.
• Along those lines, I understand there are objections to the importance of "lived experience" to policy development and other matters, but let's not debate that here either (please).

Thank you! Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 18:46, 26 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

For example, does the Korean TV series Extraordinary Attorney Woo offer helpful insights into the lived experience of (some) adults with ASD? -- Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 18:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Books and articles written by autistic people have overwhelmingly switched to a pro-neurodiversity viewpoint in recent years (at least in English; in German to a significant, but lower degree). Sources by non-autistic people that often take a medical model approach almost never address lived experience or speculate about it without asking autistic people. Therefore, most quality sources about lived experience that I listed below are pro-neurodiversity.

General descriptions of autism:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00099-z

https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0099

Book: "Is This Autism?: A Guide for Clinicians and Everyone Else" by Donna Henderson et al. (includes many statements by autistic people and there is a separate book of it for diagnosticians)

Emphasizing with other people:

https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008

https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241255811

https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320908976

Book: "Understanding Others in a Neurodiverse World: A Radical Perspective on Communication and Shared Meaning" by Gemma Williams

Book: "Authoring Autism" by Melanie Remi Yergeau

Stigma/Identity/Masking:

https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2020.1822782

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2021.101864

https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3105

https://doi.org/10.15126/thesis.00854098

Book: "Autistic Masking: Understanding Identity Management and the Role of Stigma" by Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose

Interests/Monotropism/Sensory differences:

https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361305051398

https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2023.0032

Stimming:

https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361319829628

https://doi.org/10.1177/27546330241311096

https://doi.org/10.1159/000526213

Quality of life:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-023-01441-9

https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12456

https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2016-103595

ABA:

https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-04-2020-0025

Experience of the diagnostic process and influence of the disability model chosen:

https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211001012

The autistic YouTube channel "Aucademy" (led by autistic researchers) has many videos about autistic lived experience.

Apart from the lived experience topic:

I think you already know much about the medical model, the following sources help understanding the neurodiversity viewpoint better. If you want to read one book specifically about the neurodiversity paradigm, it should probably be "Neuroqueer Heresies" by Nick Walker, which is written for a broad audience and therefore not academic but written by an academic and arguably the most prominent book in the more academic part of the neurodiversity movement. Many of her essays are freely available online. A particularly noticeable article by Monique Botha on knowledge production in autism is the following: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727542 LogicalLens (talk) 10:47, 27 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Excellent! Thank you so much LogicalLens. And, yes, I do want to improve my understanding of the neurodiversity viewpoint. Much appreciated -- Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 18:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Another article about masking: https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2020.0043

Autistic inertia (difficulty starting and stopping tasks): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631596

Autistic burnout: https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0079

Meltdown and shutdown: https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2018.1460750

Burnout, inertia, meltdown, shutdown (BIMS): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.741421

There are many more articles and I cannot list them all. Some can be found in the references of the ones I listed above, others are given in the Neurodiversity Wikipedia article. The journal "Autism in Adulthood" is also very helpful and has an impact factor of 9.9, which is, as far as I know, the highest value of all journals that are specifically for autism. A very popular theory among autistic people is Monotropism, which assumes that autistic people tend to focus their attention towards fewer things and that this explains nearly all autistic features. Much content on it can be found on https://www.monotropism.org. One of the core aims of the neurodiversity movement is to make participatory research the standard and change the power imbalance in autism research between autistic people and as of now mostly non-autistic researchers because this imbalance is the main reason why autistic voices are marginalized in all debates about autism: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-13-8437-0_10

https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361318786721

Newly published sources can be found by using a Google Scholar alert for "neurodiversity" and by following some neurodiversity researchers and advocates on social media, especially Bluesky. A few suggestions:

Monique Botha [2]

Autism in Adulthood [3]

Christina Nicolaidis [4]

Steven Kapp [5]

Sue Fletcher-Watson [6]

Catherine Crompton [7]

Ann Memmott [8]

Monotropism.org [9]

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism [10]

Robert Chapman [11]

Mary Doherty [12]

Kristen Bottema-Beutel [13]

Michelle Dawson [14]

Damian Milton (is still on Twitter) [15]

Georgia Pavlopoulou [16]

Amy Pearson [17]

Kathy Leadbitter [18]

Laura Crane [19]

Katie Munday [20]

Kieran Rose [21]

Stimpunks Foundation [22]

Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) [23]

Autistic Realms [24]

Autball [25] LogicalLens (talk) 04:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Very agree on that Botha article; my perception of autism was fundamentally altered by reading bits from her thesis, and that article is a great summary+expansion.

I'm definitely saving this list for later reading/cross referencing, thank you for compiling this list. Patrickpowns (talk) 04:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

''Autism and Masking - How and Why People Do It, and the Impact It Can Have'' (2022) by Sedgewick, F, Hull, L and Ellis, H, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, has many descriptions of the personal experiences of autistic people and how they mask. Urselius (talk) 07:45, 28 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Heartbreak High (2022 TV series), Chloé Hayden was great, so was her book, you can also check the list of autistic fictional characters, if they are autistic in real life we can assume it isn't half bad. When non-autistic people play autistic charactes it just isn't as good, for example The Good Doctor (2017 TV series) was stereotypical but the doctor stuff looked interesting (maybe autism representation was better then the doctor stuff) but even if the representation is perfect I just wanna see more successful autistic people and autistic people may aswell play the role they were born to play. Anthony2106 (talk) 02:02, 15 February 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

AUTISUM makes people nervous in socal interactions 2601:18C:9201:A941:F2D:6C:8F5B:4A1 (talk) 11:56, 29 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DonIago (talk) 13:57, 29 January 2025 (UTC) [reply ]