Author/presenter:

Caroline Hanrahan, Media

Studies Department
SOCIOLOGY OF AUTISM:
Mentor: Understanding Autism in a Socially
Dr. Sara Littlejohn, English
Department Constructed Reality Stigma
Harmful tropes from the media as
well as organizations such as
AutismSpeaks reinforce negative
A Few Things to Know stigma surrounding the autism
• “[Autism is] a condition that affects how a person spectrum, perpetuating the idea
that autistic individuals are
communicates, how they relate to people, and how they
abnormal, childish, robotic, or even
experience the world around them. Autistic people see,
scary.
hear, and feel the world differently from non-autistic
people.” - Carrie Beckwith Fellows, 2017
• Autistic traits include repetitive behavior, difficulty
Symbolic Interactionism
expressing emotions, and struggle reading others’ thoughts
“[I]f we can claim that Autistic perception is
and emotions. highly deductive perception, then we can
expect Autistic people to display behavior
Research Goal: that is repetitive” - Alexander Durig (Autism
Examine the disconnect and the Crisis of Meaning, 1996, pp. 76-80).
between autistic and non- The way autistic people socially inference is
autistic individuals in a different from neuro-typicals because their
social environment. How social construct of reality is different. People
do social factors contribute mislabel this perception as “deviant,” when it
to the isolation experienced is clearly just as valid.
by those on the spectrum?

Neurodiversity
“Neurodiversity is the enormous
diversity among human brains
and human minds…[a diversity
• Autistic people often face social isolation as a Conclusions of cognitive styles, a diversity of
result of communicating and understanding • Society labels autistic people as deviant and outcasts innate cognitive strengths and
the world differently from others. them, unfortunately causing the typical autistic weaknesses, gifts and
individual to struggle with social isolation. peculiarities.” - Nick Walker
• Studies in social sciences prove that the autistic (2014)
Work Cited perception of reality is as valid as anyone else’s
1. Fellows, Carrie Beckwith. “Invisible Diversity: A Story of Undiagnosed Autism.” YouTube. • Embracing neurodiversity would mean that the autistic
TEDxVilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania perception of reality is deemed as valid, thus
2. Office, U.S. Government Accountability. “Youth with Autism: Roundtable Views of Services
Needed During the Transition into Adulthood.” U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. eliminating the social gap between neuro-typicals and
GAO), 17 Nov. 2016, www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-109. autistic people.
3. “The Semantic-Syntactic Structure of Autistic Perception.” Autism and the Crisis of Meaning, by
Alexander Durig, State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 74–81.
4. Walker, Nick. “Neuro-What?” NeuroFly, 26 July 2013, neurocosmopolitanism.com/neuro-what/.