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Understanding Autism Resources: Insights, Information, and Support
Autism is a complex and multifaceted condition that affects individuals uniquely, shaping how they experience and interact with the world. Gaining a deeper understanding of autism is the first step toward building empathy, fostering inclusion, and providing effective support. This resource collection is dedicated to exploring the fundamentals of autism. Whether you’re a loved one of an autistic adult, an educator, a therapist, or simply someone looking to learn more, these articles offer valuable insights and perspectives to help you better understand autism and its impact on individuals.
Recent Articles
Advocating for Inclusion: The Role of the Social Model in Disability Empowerment
Most people know someone who has a disability––or they have a disability themselves. According to the census, 13.4% of the total population in the U.S. is disabled. This means 44.1 million people live with various challenges, from ambulatory to cognitive to visual.
Disabilities can be visible or invisible, such as autism or mental health conditions. In addition to the great variations in disability, there’s also more than one way to view the concept of being disabled.
Many autistic folks have engaged in discussion at one point or another about whether being autistic is a difference or a disability. This answer can change depending on which model through which we see autism. In the medical model, autism itself is the cause of a disability, but in the social model, autism is a difference, and it is the environment that disables us.
Read on to explore the differences between the medical and social models of disability.
Autism Support Needs, Not Labels: A Guide to “Levels”
As an adult diagnosed first with autism as a child and again as an adult, I have witnessed firsthand the change in the way the DSM, or The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, has changed to affirm autistic people. In 2013, the DSM updated its resources with an eye to supportive care.
Rather than labeling autistic people with misleading descriptors like high-functioning, low-functioning, or others, experts now categorize autistic individuals based on levels (one, two, or three). These levels indicate varying degrees of support needs, which are often fluid and can change over time.
Mental health professionals and patients can now navigate autism support without labels, a notable step forward in recognizing the individuality of care.
This DSM change also did away with the term pervasive developmental disorder, which encompassed disorders such as Aspergers and child disintegrative disorder. Instead, they were replaced by autism spectrum levels.
Kaila Hattis, MA, LMFT, founder and therapist of Pacific Coast Therapy, explains, “The change focuses less on what someone has to more on what someone needs, and changes the way families access services and disperse information on what their loved one needs."
While these three levels of autism don’t capture the full picture of autism spectrum disorder, they’re a move in the right direction to fuller, more nuanced autism treatment.
What is Autism Spectrum Disorder? A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Autism
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder. This means it’s a developmental disability involving an individual's neurological system. It is not a mental disorder or mental illness. ASD affects how people communicate, behave and process sensory information.
Some people believe that the term "spectrum" means everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum of autism. This is because autistic traits are human traits. Many people do have some features of autism, but this does not mean they have enough features of autism, at a high enough level, to be clinically diagnosed as autistic. In actuality, the term “spectrum” helps to highlight that there are many ways that autism can affect people differently. There’s a wide range of how autism presents in someone’s life. For example, there are some autistic people who need significant support, while others can live more independently.
The diagnosis “autistic disorder” was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R)––a reference manual for mental health providers—in the late 1980s.
However, the DSM-5, released in 2013, resulted in a major change in language surrounding autism. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now an overarching diagnosis, encompassing the older diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and autistic disorder.
Increasing awareness and understanding autism
People used to think autism spectrum disorder was rare, but many people are realizing it’s more common than they thought.
The Cleveland Clinic estimates that 1 in 36 children in the U.S. is autistic, and the CDC estimates that 2.21% of U.S. adults are autistic.
However, these percentages may actually be higher due to factors like misdiagnosis, underdiagnosis or late diagnoses. These occurrences are particularly common among certain groups, such as girls and women, people of color and those from marginalized communities.
This doesn’t mean autism is more common now than it used to be. Rather, autism awareness among healthcare providers is higher, especially now that there’s better access to tools and resources for continued learning. The general public knows more about autism, too. These advances help foster better understanding for autistic people as well as their families, friends and communities.
