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Empowering Resilience: How Occupational Therapy Supports Autistic Adolescents with Depression
Adolescence can be a challenging time for anyone, but for Autistic teens, the journey can come with unique emotional, social, and sensory hurdles. Depression is more common among Autistic youth than their neurotypical peers, often going undiagnosed or misunderstood. Research shows Autistic...
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Co-Mentorship: A Catalyst for Fighting Stigma and Career Success
Autistic professionals bring critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and unique insight to the workforce. Yet many face persistent stigma and misunderstanding that hinder their full participation in professional spaces. Misconceptions about communication styles, social behavior, and sensory...
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Research Meets Reality TV: How the Media Stigmatizes Autism and Why it Matters
Depictions of autism in the media—whether fictional or nonfictional—influence the wider public’s perception of autism, both positively and negatively. Two of the more well-known portrayals of autism are Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory as well Raymond Babbitt, the historically common...
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Behind the Behavior: Stigma, Misunderstanding, and the Emerging Profile of Pathological Demand Avoidance
“Stigma is the process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity.” - Erving Goffman When a child resists instruction, lashes out under pressure, or refuses school altogether, the dominant narrative still points toward oppositional defiance, behavioral reinforcement systems, or a...
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The Never-Ending Cycle: Autism, Stigma, and the Cost of Late Diagnosis
What actually constitutes as a late diagnosis for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been up for debate for years. Some studies and institutions cite any diagnosis after 12 years of age as being the cut-off (Hoxworth, 2022), whereas some argue it could be as young as three (Russell et al., 2025)....
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It Is Time to Remove Stigma from Autism Interventions
Historically, autism has been blamed for the challenges autistic people face. Struggling to stay in school? Get a job? Make friends? “It's because of the autism.” The belief is this: If autistic people are trained to behave like someone without autism, they will face fewer challenges. Under...
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The Neurodiversity Movement: Promoting Acceptance and Understanding Through Employee Resource Groups
Devereux is known for its 112-year history of providing compassionate, evidence-based clinical care and treatment of neurodiverse individuals. The nonprofit is equally committed to fostering a welcoming workplace environment for its employees, many of whom are also neurodivergent. One way...
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Autism and the Stigmas of Living with an Invisible Disability
Autism, at least for the less severely impaired, has been called an “invisible disability.” This is because the challenges faced by autistics are not as readily evident as those of other disabilities. A visually impaired person, or one using a wheelchair, is immediately seen as someone facing...
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Studying Us to Death: The Lethal Cost of Autism Research Without Autistic Investigators
I was formally diagnosed with autism and ADHD at the age of 44. I finally had an explanation for why so many things in my life seemed so much harder for me than for others. There was a reason I often felt like the people around me were having two conversations – one with words that I had full...
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Becoming the Person I Once Needed
I often think to myself, “I do this so that no other autistic child has to go through what I went through.” As an autism researcher with a background in social psychology, I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of stigma over time. But it wasn’t any article, study, course, or the...
