Autism Acceptance Week 2023: the importance of social change

The Autism Alliance is advocating for real change for autistic people and their families. Going beyond strategies, commitments and good intentions, we want to see year on year improvements in the most important outcomes for autistic people, from life expectancy and health inequality to education and employment.

The acceptance of autistic people is fundamental to achieving real change. Government policy is important – particularly funding and accountability – but culture has perhaps the greatest influence of all. The ways we act in the moment, the individual decisions we make, and the ways these scale up at the level of society, have a huge impact on outcomes and inequalities for others – and right now, cultural barriers faced by autistic people remain locked into both services and society.

Awareness of autism is very high. But acceptance is a step further than awareness, and demands changes in the way we all think and act. Some of the ways in which autistic people are different are shared, but every autistic person is individual – and recognising and engaging with individuality is fundamental to acceptance. We have to see past a label to the person: unique, rich and complex.

To increase acceptance, we need to increase familiarity. At least 1 in 100 people is autistic, and the number may be higher than this. But autistic people are still too often seen on the margin, not in the mainstream.

The more we can all do to recognise and speak about autistic children, young people and adults, and help them show their individual, true selves – as family members, friends, work colleagues – the more familiar this becomes, and the more natural it feels as part of how we think and act. Greater visibility then feeds into greater empathy and engagement, and the positive process continues. People are naturally curious but sometimes afraid of difference, and we have to work hard to enlarge the circle of our experience, regularly and positively.

The media plays an important role in this, and it’s positive to see autistic people enjoying a much higher profile than in the past on TV, radio and in the arts – but stories in the mainstream media sometimes deal with difficult subjects, and it’s vital we are vigilant to the risk of negative perceptions these subjects create, alongside the opportunities to improve understanding.

Greater familiarity also implies greater sensitivity to the ways in which differences present. Autistic people may have differences in social and communication approaches, and differences in sensory processing, but these may not be easy to recognise, or may not be evident all the time.

They might include being highly systematic and logical, having high sensitivity to pain, using different ways of placing trust, not recognising hunger, sometimes not using words, and a wealth of other ways of being and ways of thinking. The more familiar it feels to acknowledge these differences, the more natural it will be to respond in ways which recognise autistic people’s individual interests, experiences and needs.

It’s important also to celebrate autistic people’s strengths, and to pay particular attention to this across society. Autistic people can be inspirational, and this can inspire others towards greater acceptance. However, we need a broad view of strengths. Just like non-autistic people, autistic people may have a special talent, but equally may excel at being a caring family member or an excellent friend. So recognising the full breadth of individual identity, and the value that each person has, is as important for autistic as for non-autistic people.

Language is powerful, and can make all the difference in priming and conditioning behaviour. So it’s vital we continue to help language evolve positively – bearing down on negative or stigmatising terms, and using words that reflect and respect the individuality of autistic people.

But most importantly of all, society has to show that it is listening. Too often the ways in which autistic people are treated reflect the imposition of our own views – listening to respond rather than listening to understand. Listening to understand means setting aside our own preconceptions and preferences, and asking ‘what would work best from this person’s perspective?’. To achieve acceptance, the voices of autistic people of all ages need to be centre stage.

In Autism Acceptance Week, the Autism Alliance celebrates the gains we are making, and calls for faster progress towards acceptance.

Social change is underway, and we need to reinforce and support this in the UK. A more comprehensive approach to training across public services is part of the picture, but policies that reflect and amplify positive changes in attitudes are equally vital. Autism acceptance should be more than a campaign: it should be a movement.

Neurodiversity is arguably the next frontier in inclusion. We should be striving for a world in which everyone accepts, and seeks to understand, different kinds of minds. In time, this should be second nature, not a specialist subject. To this extent, autism acceptance is a pathway towards a more inclusive society for all.