Embracing Autism as a Difference, Not a Deficit

Paying the price for misattunement • Creating space to be yourself • Developing more accurate assessments

The autism spectrum includes people with a wide range of sensory and social differences, leading to a common refrain within the autism community: “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” Although low-support-needs autistic people live largely typical personal and professional lives, high-support-needs autistic people may be nonverbal and require 24-hour care from their families or a team of formal caregivers to meet their basic needs. Many autistic people fall somewhere in between these two examples, and each individual autistic person may develop a unique set of social preferences and abilities in response to their own constellation of sensory sensitivities. 

Autism is often perceived primarily as a social disorder because the social differences associated with this condition are the aspect of autism that most directly affects other people, explains social psychologist Devon Price in his 2022 book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. For Price and many other autistic individuals, however, autism is primarily experienced as a sensory processing disorder that alters a person’s ability to filter sensory information, leading their brains to be less attuned to important body signals and to be hyper- or hypo-sensitive to sensory inputs. This can cause autistic people to have difficulty feeling connected to their own bodies, identifying their own emotions, or recognizing sensations such as hunger. They may also experience everyday sights, sounds, and other sensations that nonautistic people can easily ignore as highly distracting, uncomfortable, or worse. 

“What non-Autistic folks often don’t realize is that Autistic people experience intense sensory input as if it were physical pain,” Price writes. “Unfortunately, when an Autistic person complains about the sensory pain they’re in, people think they’re being overly dramatic, needly, or even downright ‘crazy.’” 

This unique developmental pathway can lead to a bidirectional mismatch between the social preferences of autistic and nonautistic people, also known as the double empathy problem. For this reason, the social “deficits” often attributed to autistic people can be better understood as a misalignment in the social preferences of autistic people and those of the nonautistic, also referred to as allistic or neurotypical, society that they live in., wrote developmental psychologist Rachael Davis and neuropsychologist Catherine J. Crompton (University of Edinburgh) in a 2021 Perspectives on Psychological Science article. 

“Conceptualizing communication differences across neurotypes as bidirectional while at the same time acknowledging that autistic people face varying communication difficulties provides a valuable opportunity for future research to influence ways of thinking about differences at a societal level,” Davis and Crompton wrote. 

Research on autism continues to be dominated by deficits-based models that fail to consider the two-way nature of autistic–nonautistic interactions, as well as the relative ease with which autistic people can interact with each other, the authors wrote. These overly simplistic models have also contributed to the common misconception that autistic people can’t experience empathy, possibly because of their lacking the theory of mind abilities necessary to interpret other people’s thoughts and feelings.  

Research suggests, however, that though autistic people may struggle to interpret the behavior of nonautistic people, they are often able to interact quite comfortably and effectively with other autistic individuals, Davis and Crompton wrote. Additionally, studies have found that nonautistic people are less accurate than autistic people at reading autistic individuals’ facial expressions and interpreting their mental states—some of the very same social deficits often attributed to autistic people—which may contribute to misalignment during autistic-nonautistic social interactions.

Related content: Collected Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder

In line with these findings, as science writer Steven Silberman outlines in his bestselling 2015 book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, many autistic people have begun to recognize that at least some of their daily challenges are not “symptoms” of autism at all. Instead, they may be the result of neurotypical societies’ refusal to accommodate the harmless differences that may arise from cognitive disabilities, just as it should accommodate people who are blind, deaf, or use wheelchairs, Silberman wrote. 

“One of the most promising developments … has been the emergence of the concept of neurodiversity: the notion that conditions like autism, dyslexia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be regarded as naturally occurring cognitive variations with distinctive strengths that have contributed to the evolution of technology and culture rather than mere checklists of deficits and dysfunctions,” Silberman wrote. 

The double-empathy-problem framework embraces neurodiversity by shifting the responsibility for social misattunement—or the experience of not feeling seen or heard—from the brain of the autistic individual onto the social dynamic between autistic and nonautistic people by acknowledging that people of both neurotypes may struggle to empathize with one another, Davis and Crompton wrote. This mismatch may emerge from lifelong differences in how we experience sensory information, language, and social cues, but it is not insurmountable. 

“Bridging the gap between different interaction styles can reduce stigma and increase understanding,” Davis and Crompton wrote. 

Paying the price for misattunement 

Although this autistic–nonautistic social mismatch goes both ways, the reality remains that autistic people, who represent about 1.5% of the world’s population excluding those without a formal diagnosis, are a social minority and the threat of exclusion, harassment, and unemployment pushes many autistic people to attempt to mask their autistic traits by consciously copying neurotypical behavior to avoid the consequences of violating nonautistic people’s preferred social norms, wrote Price. This might include repressing autistic traits by not sharing their strong special interests or stimming—self-stimulatory behaviors like hand flapping or rocking used to soothe sensory overwhelm or simply to express themselves—or by forcing themselves to perform uncomfortable neurotypical behaviors like prolonged eye contact, exaggerated facial expressions, or allowing people to invade their personal space. 

These attempts to mask autistic behavior, also known as camouflaging, come at a cost, placing autistic people in a double bind with life-altering consequences. In a 2023 meta-analysis of data from 48,186 autistic participants without intellectual disabilities in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, psychologist Victoria Newell (University of Nottingham) and colleagues found that 34% of participants reported experiencing suicidal ideation, while 24% had attempted to end their lives at least once, compared to 9% and 3% of the general world population. Rates were highest among participants who were female or transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC), and there was no significant difference in suicidal behaviors between participants with a formal autism diagnosis and those without a diagnosis who scored above the clinical cutoff for autistic traits. 

Previous studies have also found that 70%–80% of autistic people experience anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems, and that 40% of people with a lifetime history of suicide attempts meet the clinical cut-off for autistic traits, Newell and colleagues noted. Rates of suicidal behaviors are also higher in autistic people with intellectual disabilities. This was not the case for suicidal ideation, the researchers explained, but this may be because of the difficulty autistic people with language delays or intellectual disabilities may have with self-reporting internal experiences. 

While their specific experiences may be unique, autistic people’s increased rates of suicide align with the interpersonal theory of suicide, Newell and colleagues write. This theory suggests that people attempt suicide in response to deeply felt feelings of thwarted belongingness (a feeling that emerges when the need to connect is unmet) and perceived burdensomeness (the perception that others would benefit from one’s death), among other factors. Previous work suggests that autistic people report experiencing both of these feelings at higher levels than nonautistic individuals and that these risk factors are responsible for the relationship between autistic traits and suicide, the researchers continue. Camouflaging in particular is associated with greater thwarted belonginess. 

These findings not only demonstrate the need for society to be more inclusive of autistic individuals in general, but to actively support and accept autistic people who “unmask” by refusing to hide their autistic traits and behaviors. 

Creating space to be yourself 

Respecting many autistic people’s preferences for more personal space may be one simple step nonautistic people can take to support autistic people’s well-being and help build more inclusive educational, professional, and therapeutic spaces, wrote cognitive neuropsychologist Kinga Farkas (Semmelweis University) and colleagues in a 2024 Perspectives on Psychological Science article. This could include supporting autistic people who want to complete work, school, or therapy remotely, or at least in a less stimulating setting than a crowded classroom or shared office space, as well as providing quiet spaces for people to withdraw to after emotionally draining tasks. 

“Just as physical spaces are made accessible, social spaces can be adapted for autistic individuals by acknowledging that even normal levels of sensory information, including interpersonal closeness, can be overwhelming,” Farkas said in an interview with the Observer. “Allowing for flexible interaction distances can help reduce sensory stress, making these spaces more inclusive and supportive for autistic individuals. This approach acknowledges their unique sensory sensitivities and adapts accordingly, rather than expecting them to simply adjust.” 

Interpersonal distance (IPD) theory offers an additional perspective through which to study the cognitive and social functioning of autistic people, lending further support to the idea that at least some of the disabling aspects of autism are socially constructed. All people demonstrate reduced social skills when their personal space is violated, Farkas and colleagues wrote, leading neurotypical people to perform behaviors reminiscent of the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder—including avoiding eye contact, movement, and small talk—when crowded into close quarters.  

Although a nonautistic person may need to be corralled into a crowded elevator for these effects to become evident, research suggests that autistic people have much larger personal-space bubbles than their neurotypical peers, Farkas and colleagues explained. For this reason, autistic people’s social performance in lower-IPD settings may not reflect their true social competency because their personal space is more frequently violated by neurotypical people who prefer to interact at a closer range, Farkas and colleagues suggested. For some autistic individuals, the interpersonal distance prescribed by nonautistic social norms could be far too close for comfort, leading everyday situations such as sitting shoulder to shoulder in a classroom or having a conversation at arm’s length to be socially impairing. 

Autistic and nonautistic people’s preferences for personal space likely reflect their distinct neural processes, Farkas and colleagues continued. Autistic people have been found to have more dysregulated brain activity than nonautistic people during experimental IPD tasks, which may make it more difficult to integrate information as social distance decreases, contributing to feelings of discomfort. Additionally, autistic people’s amygdalas—a brain area associated with social learning, attention, and emotion—are more active than those of nonautistic people during face-processing tasks, potentially consuming cognitive resources that would otherwise be devoted to guiding social behavior. Autistic people’s amygdalas are also less likely to habituate to social stimuli, which can make it difficult for autistic people to determine which social signals they should be paying attention to, further complicating social interactions. 

Sensory hypersensitivity and adverse experiences of bullying and abuse may also encourage autistic people to prefer larger interaction distances, the researchers noted. 

“The key message is that we must first accept this difference before exploring solutions,” Farkas said. “Once we deepen our understanding, we can approach these challenges with strategies that may be nonphysical, slower, or unconventional in some way—tailored to the unique way autistic individuals process social space.”  

Much of the current research on interpersonal distance theory has focused on lower-support-needs autistic people without intellectual disabilities who can speak, Farkas and colleagues noted, and it remains to be seen how these findings may generalize to higher-support-needs autistic people who are intellectually disabled and/or nonverbal. 

“The message for them might be that caregivers and helpers should keep in mind that preferred IPD might vary in different situations, and it might affect the motivation and performance of these people, too,” Farkas and colleagues wrote. 

Developing more accurate assessments 

IPD theory also has significant implications for how best to conduct research with autistic individuals. For researchers to accurately measure autistic people’s social and cognitive abilities, studies need to take into account the distance between the researcher and their autistic participants, Farkas and colleagues wrote. Autistic individuals may perform very differently on the same task depending on whether it is delivered face-to-face, with a researcher in the room, in an unfamiliar laboratory setting, or remotely, the researchers continued.  

Further study of how autistic people’s cognitive functions differ across settings is needed to help refine the IPD theory of autism, Farkas and colleagues explained. Many autistic people report avoiding phone calls, for example, due to difficulty with timing their responses and interpreting vocal cues without complementary visual inputs, suggesting that autistic people’s IPD preferences can’t be boiled down to “bigger is better.” 

More longitudinal research will also be needed to more precisely chart autistic people’s social development, as well as the age at which autistic–nonautistic misattunements begin to emerge and how they change over time, Davis and Crompton wrote. Identifying autism-specific social developmental pathways could help autistic people to flourish through increased understanding of the unique factors that contribute to their well-being. These might include their parents’ understanding of autism, whether they are taught in a mainstream or special education setting, and if they have access to peer support from other autistic people. 

There is also a need for researchers to develop more autism-specific assessments of social cognition, wrote Davis and Crompton. Currently, many assessments may not accurately measure autistic peoples’ real-world social and cognitive functioning because they tend to emphasize a person’s ability to conform with nonautistic social norms over their ability to complete a task efficiently. Theory of mind (ToM) assessments, which explore how individuals think and what motives underly their behaviors, may also fail to capture autistic people’s ability to mentalize because they exclusively task participants with interpreting nonautistic mental states. Incorporating autistic mental states into theory of mind assessments could help clarify autistic people’s true ToM abilities, as well as the extent to which the challenges of autistic–nonautistic interactions may arise from nonautistic people’s difficulty with interpreting autistic mental states. 

“This groundbreaking area of research is beginning to provide empirical evidence to support the views that members of the autism community have advocated for many years,” Davis and Crompton wrote. “Offering empirical support for the idea of difference, not deficit, will contribute to the progression of the rights of autistic people and will have important implications for practice and the public understanding of autism.” 

Armed with this perspective, we can continue to embrace autism as both a disability and a valuable source of neurodiversity as people of all neurotypes work together to build a more inclusive society. 

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