Open Society

If Autism is a neutral source of human diversity, why the hell would we need to diagnose it?

When you ask a stranger what autism looks like, odds are, they picture a little white boy. On the internet, there are posts floating around that say things like “women can’t be autistic” and “every…

I'm far from alone.

The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety — and rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes.

Maureen Dunne (The Neurodiversity Edge) is a cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert, and business leader. Maureen joins the Armchair Expert to discuss her ability to read a book in a half hour, how most people don’t fit into just one neurodivergent box, and how neurodiversity should be seen as a

Just because a person, system, or approach is "generating results" doesn't mean it's worth pursuing

Background: Social skills training (SST) is an intervention intended to support the development of social communication and interaction for autistic people, often through role-play, modeling, peer mediation, or group activities. While often targeted at autistic children, adults may also be offered SST following diagnosis. Evaluations of SST generally focus on social and behavioral outcomes, with little consideration for participants' experience of the intervention. This study was the first to seek the perspectives of autistic adults regarding their previous experiences of SST in childhood or adulthood. Methods: We interviewed a total of 11 autistic adults (5 male, 5 female, and 1 agender) from the United Kingdom online. Interviews were semi-structured and focused on participants' previous experiences of SST and how they felt it could be improved. We analyzed data using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Autistic adults wanted support around social communication and life skills, which they felt was not always provided through SST. Participants suggested that SST should be personalized and accessible as and when needed. Support through autistic peers and trained neurotypicals was particularly valued. Some emphasized the need for non-autistic people to receive training on how to socialize with autistic people. Some participants also reported negative experiences of SST or felt that it was not necessary. Conclusions: Current SST provision in the United Kingdom does not always meet the needs of autistic adults. Services providing SST should consider personalizing their support options and ensure that autistic adults are involved in the design and delivery of SST. Some autistic people may not want or need SST, and it should be integrated to a broader range of support options.

If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice

Conservatives are freely giving child molesters every tool they need just to spite liberals and progressives.

“When you're not perceived by other people and your social needs are so deprived…you don’t actually know you exist”Alexis Quinn who was held for 3 years in a mental health facility due to her autism speaks to @vicderbyshire about her experience.#newsnight pic.twitter.com/HHh0j3JMIa— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) March 27, 2024

Nature Mental Health - In this Perspective the authors provide recommendations for researchers conducting school-based mental health research to minimize potential harm in designing and delivering...

This research roundup picks out some of the current big debates on autistic lives, and showcases new and important research from teams and academics working within the field.

The anthropology of the senses has largely been a post-colonial endeavour. Part of its impetus is the ongoing discomfort among some anthropologists with the imperialist tradition of science, which ...

Claudia Koonz's The Nazi Conscience shows that fascism was less total than we think

Tech and the liberal arts have always been at war. Don’t assume Silicon Valley will win.

Two full days after the disastrous collapse of a bridge in Baltimore, little is known about six construction workers who went missing—and are now presumed dead.

Used to operating with scarce resources, Montana Medicaid providers say gaps in state payments have left them struggling further.

“We know what these folks really want to say when they say DEI mayor,” Scott told The Banner. “They really want to say the N-word.”

Self-determination theory (SDT) provides a framework for understanding the factors that promote motivation and healthy psychological and behavioral functioning. In this authoritative work, the codevelopers of the theory comprehensively examine SDT's conceptual underpinnings (including its six mini-theories), empirical evidence base, and practical applications across the lifespan. The volume synthesizes a vast body of research on how supporting--or thwarting--people's basic needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy affects their development and well-being. Chapters cover implications for practice and policy in education, health care, psychotherapy, sport, and the workplace.

Embodied space is the location where human experience and consciousness takes on material and spatial form. After identifying the inherent difficulties in defin...

Autistic individuals can have poor outcomes from school, including high rates of unemployment. Despite a growing focus on the work experiences of autistic people, and various approaches to remediate ...

The neurodiversity movement is a social movement that emerged among autistic self-advocates. It has since spread and has been joined by many with diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder...

Our work tests how words pertaining to neurodivergent conditions such as “autism” or “ADHD” are viewed by artificial intelligence (AI) language models. AI is involved in many decisions such as medica...

Disagreement over recent TikTok legislation reveals a deep divide about our current political moment. Should we, like many of the bill’s proponents, assume the existence of a functional…

Since all policies address problems, they necessarily include implicit or explicit constructions of these problems. This paper explores how child maltreatment has been constructed in New Zealand’s child protection policies. It questions the underlying assumptions of this problem construction and seeks to shed light on what has been omitted. Utilizing a qualitative content analysis of eight key policy documents, this study reveals the construction of child maltreatment has been dominated primarily by a child-centric, risk-focused approach. This approach assigns blame and shifts responsibilities onto parents and families. In addition, the vulnerability discourse and social investment approach underpinning this perspective have allowed important structural factors, such as poverty and inequality, to remain unaddressed. This paper also highlights the one-dimensional focus on the lower social class to control future liabilities. We suggest that the harm inflicted by corporations on children’s well-being is another form of child exploitation currently omitted from the problem construction. We suggest that child abuse should be defined and understood in policy as harm to children’s well-being and argue that the state should prevent and mitigate harm by addressing structural forces of the problem as well as protecting children against corporate harms.

Mounting scientific evidence reveals that being infected with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID — profoundly impacts brain health in many ways.

The CDC’s new “Pan-respiratory” isolation guidelines make sense to many public-health experts, but there could be some downsides, too.

Despite the right's ridiculous DEI conspiracy theories, the Baltimore bridge disaster reminded us that immigrants are what makes America great.

Abstract Over 1% of the UK population has a diagnosis of autism and, of this group, half will also have a learning disability. Studies show that people