Beautiful Minds

This presentation will discuss a subset of findings from my dissertation research which analyzes 30 interviews with doctoral students to explore the question: Why do students in significant mental distress choose not to seek healthcare for these concerns, despite an awareness of “accessible” services on-campus? Framed in theory from library and information studies, critical disability studies, and my lived experience as an AuDHD doctoral candidate, this presentation will discuss how low levels of informational and tangible support from academic institutions can unintentionally increase health inequities by creating additional barriers that impede access to mental healthcare for historically underserved doctoral students.

As instrumental as academic books can be for changing people’s views of autism, authentic and positive autism representation in children’s books and other media is also vital! Books that avoid stereotypes and tired tropes and contain authenticity and nuance can provide an enlightening and enriching glimpse of neurodiversity for children during their formative years when they are also told to respect people for other differences. Children—autistic or not—who learn about autism through these books may come to view autism as a beautiful, unique way of seeing the world and thriving in it. It is arguably equally important for non-autistic and autistic children to understand autism from an early age. We feel that picture books are a vital first step in introducing autism and neurodiversity to children.
Over the past few months, our lab has been examining nearly 100 autism-related children’s books (of varying degrees of authenticity and sensitivity on the subject of autism), ascertaining common tropes of autism portrayals on a textural and even visual level. We propose two angles of discussion: overall representation (or lack thereof) of immediate echolalia, delayed echolalia, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC); and a fine-grained qualitative/case study to examine depictions of negative social interactions between the autistic main character and their non-autistic peers or siblings.

Though both echolalia and AAC are frequently used by autistic people, we observed a striking lack of representation of these communication methods in the children’s book sample. Of 93 children’s books featuring an autistic main character, only seven included any examples of immediate or delayed echolalia. Furthermore, all seven characters also used spontaneous non-echolalic speech, so the sample contained no portrayals of autistic individuals whose communication was solely echolalic. We find this dearth of purely echolalic communicators highly significant given the books’ target age range: 2-6-year-olds. Young children—both autistic and neurotypical—commonly repeat their caregivers’ utterances (Fusaroli et al., 2023); thus, it would benefit all children to see this form of communication positively represented via depictions of immediate echolalia in children’s books. Furthermore, delayed echolalia is characteristic of autism across the lifespan, but particularly when autistic children are first acquiring language, so it is important to destigmatize delayed echolalia early in childhood. We also found that only eight autistic main characters in the 93-book sample used any form of AAC, despite the fact that over 25% of the autistic population is minimally- or non-speaking (Norrelgen et al., 2014). We plan to further examine the types of AAC represented and the contexts in which AAC is used in the book sample, as well as the demographic characteristics of AAC-using autistic characters.

Our analysis of negative interactions was inspired by the perspectives from which these books are written. Often the books we are given tell stories of a non-autistic person interacting with an autistic peer/sibling from the former’s point of view. Within this neurotypical bias, it would be easy for autistic traits to be presented as challenging. Our qualitative/ case example approach would be to look for clearly negative interactions between autistic characters and non-autistic peers and siblings in these books and what autistic traits presented in the book lead to such negative views. Such interactions we will be looking for include teasing, exclusion, fighting, or a strong disagreement. Negative opinions expressed by the non-autistic peer/sibling will count as well. Examples we found include a neurotypical sister describing her autistic brother’s “”not-so-special”” traits like hiding her toys in A Manuel for Marco and a neurotypical boy’s friend describing his autistic brother as a “”wacko”” for rocking back and forth and wiggling his fingers repeatedly in Waiting for Benjamin. This part of the research is important, as these examples can affect the reader’s views on autism, without even intending to, by leaning into the traits that make autistic people so frustrating to interact with for others. We believe that our findings can shine a light on how certain areas in books on autism are improving and what needs more progress.

This presentation will explore the connection between the Mad Pride and Neurodiversity movements, two convergent histories of activism, art and scholarship that have identified and sought to understand and resist saneism. Concepts like ‘neurodiversity’ are becoming increasingly widespread in academia, the mental healthcare system, and even in mainstream culture. This reflects much-needed progress, though there is not always comparable awareness of the history and evolution of the social movements that brought these concepts into being. So this presentation will be an opportunity to get grounded in where these concepts came from – especially the social justice roots – and to acknowledge our amazing ancestors whose work paved the way for where we are today (and where we hope to go)! It will also cover some concerning trends for us to be mindful of and work to mitigate, such as the co-optation, oversimplification and misuse of these concepts, which are unfortunately common in any anti-oppressive paradigm shift.

As a key part of the diversity of neurodiversity, I seek to present psychosis as a form of neurodivergence. I also aim to raise awareness about psychosis drawing from my own lived experiences as a neurodivergent adult.