Aucademy Aucademy Uncategorized

Autism’s “four subtypes” – what the Litman et al. 2025 study actually found

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) | Aucademy CIC©

Please credit when sharing.

Farahar, C. (2026, May 2nd). Autism’s “four subtypes” – what the Litman et al. 2025 study actually found. Aucademy. https://aucademy.co.uk/2026/05/02/autisms-four-subtypes-what-the-litman-et-al-2025-study-actually-found/

For permissions, contact au-cademy@outlook.com

On this page you will find three versions of my discussion about the problems with a research paper from 2025 by Litman et al. There are three versions depending on how you like or need to take in information.

There is a blog plain language version; a short essay version; and an easy read version.

Click the title of the version you would like to read below.

👇🏼 BLOG: Autism’s “four subtypes” – what the 2025 study actually found
A short, plain-language take on Litman et al. (2025)

Autism’s “four subtypes” – what the 2025 study actually found

A short, plain-language take on Litman et al. (2025)

You may have seen the headlines. A study in Nature Genetics has, we are told, identified four genetic subtypes of autism. Friends are emailing it to me. Colleagues are asking what I think. So let me set out, in plain language, what Litman and colleagues (2025) actually did – and what they did not.

What they did

Researchers took data from over 5,000 Autistic children whose parents had filled in a battery of standard questionnaires: how their child communicated, what repetitive behaviours they did, what emotional difficulties parents perceived, when they first walked, when they first used words. A computer model sorted those parent responses into four groups. Then the researchers looked at the genetics of children in each group and reported that the groups had different genetic patterns.

What they did not do

They did not identify four genetic subtypes of autism. Quite simply, the four groups were built from parent-reported behaviour first. Genetics was looked at second. The genetics did not create the groups. The behaviour questionnaires did.

And here is the line buried in the paper that you will not see in the press release: none of the four groups had a significantly different polygenic score for autism. The genetic differences they did find were mostly in scores for ADHD, IQ, educational attainment, and depression. The two groups with the strongest rare-variant signals are essentially the groups of children with co-occurring learning disability and developmental delay – something we have known is associated with rare high-impact genetic variants for years.

The questionnaires they used are not neutral

The Social Communication Questionnaire asks parents to rate how “abnormal” their Autistic child’s eye contact is. The Repetitive Behavior Scale rates how “problematic” stimming and routines are. The Child Behavior Checklist measures “internalising” and “externalising problems”. Every one of these tools asks an outsider – a parent – to interpret an Autistic child’s behaviour through a deficit lens. None asks the Autistic child anything. None considers monotropism, sensory difference, the Cullen Autistic pragmatic language hypothesis, the double empathy problem, or the three-dimensional Autistic space framework (more on Autistic theories and research). None considers that what looks like a “problem” from the outside might be a coping mechanism, a preference, a strength, or a perfectly reasonable response to an overwhelming environment.

When the categories themselves are loaded – “Broadly affected”, “Moderate challenges” – we should ask: affected by what? Challenges according to whom?

Why this matters

Autistic people and our communities have spent decades dismantling the crude tiers that came before: high versus low functioning, Asperger’s versus autism, severe versus mild. We did this work because those binaries flattened us into hierarchies and decided in advance who got to speak, who deserved support, and whose autism was even “real”. We do not need a new four-tier vocabulary, wrapped in the authority of computational genetics and a Nature journal’s reputation, to bring those binaries back through the side door. Particularly when our profiles are never fixed ([Farahar TDAS link]), and subtyping historically and in the recent past has been weaponised against Autistic people with and without traditional speech to deny support and services.

A more honest summary

Here is what Litman et al. actually showed. Parent-reported behaviour patterns can be statistically grouped. The groups correlate with genetic variation, mostly for co-occurring conditions and learning disability. That is a useful contribution to research methods. It is not the discovery of autism’s genetic subtypes.

Until autism research starts with Autistic experience – until it asks us – every “subtype” it produces will tell us more about the people doing the looking than about the people being looked at.

Reference: Litman, A., Sauerwald, N., Green Snyder, L., Foss-Feig, J., Park, C. Y., Hao, Y., Dinstein, I., Theesfeld, C. L., & Troyanskaya, O. G. (2025). Decomposition of phenotypic heterogeneity in autism reveals underlying genetic programs. Nature Genetics, 57, 1611–1619.

👇🏼EASY READ: A new study about autism – what it really found
📖  An Easy Read explanation

A new study about autism – what it really found

📖  An Easy Read explanation

By Dr Chloe Farahar

📄  About this Easy Read
•  This Easy Read is about a new science paper.
•  The paper is about autism.
•  It came out in July 2025.
•  Some people said the paper found new types of autism in our genes.
•  I do not think that is what the paper found.
•  This Easy Read explains why.
🔬  What is the new paper?
•  A team of scientists wrote the paper.
•  The lead writer is called Litman.
•  It is in a science journal called Nature Genetics.
•  The scientists wanted to understand why autism looks different in different people.
👨‍👩‍👧  What did the scientists do?
•  They looked at more than 5,000 Autistic children.
•  They asked parents to fill in questionnaires.
•  The questionnaires asked about the child’s behaviour.
•  A computer sorted the children into 4 groups.
•  The 4 groups were based on the parents’ answers.
•  Then the scientists looked at the children’s genes.
📰  What did the news say?
•  Some people reported this as though the scientists found 4 genetic types of autism.
•  “Genetic” means caused by genes.
•  That sounds like the scientists found the genes that make someone Autistic.
•  But that is NOT what they found.
❌  What the study did NOT find
•  The 4 groups were made from parent answers – not from genes.
•  The genes were only looked at AFTER the groups were made.
•  This matters a lot.
•  The scientists also checked autism gene scores in each group.
•  The autism gene scores were the SAME in all 4 groups.
•  This means the groups were NOT different in their autism genes.
🧬  What about the gene differences they did find?
•  The scientists did find some gene differences.
•  But those differences were for OTHER things.
•  The differences were for ADHD, IQ, school grades, and depression.
•  These are NOT autism.
•  Two of the groups had more rare gene changes.
•  Those two groups were the children who also had a learning disability.
•  We already knew learning disability is linked to rare gene changes.
•  So this is not really new.
❓  Were the questions in the study fair?
•  The questionnaires see autism as something “wrong” or “broken”.
•  One asks parents to rate how “abnormal” their child’s eye contact is.
•  Another asks if stimming is a “problem”.
•  None of the questionnaires ask the Autistic child anything.
•  They do not think about monotropism.
•  Monotropism means deep focus on one thing at a time.
•  They do not think about sensory needs.
•  They see autism through a “deficit” lens.
•  “Deficit” means looking only at what is missing or wrong.
🏷️  The names of the groups are loaded
•  One group is called “Broadly affected”.
•  We can ask: affected by what?
•  Another group is called “Moderate challenges”.
•  We can ask: challenges to whom?
•  These names hide a judgement inside them.
•  They compare Autistic children to non-Autistic children.
⚠️  Why does this matter?
•  Autistic people fought for years to stop being put in boxes.
•  Old boxes included “high functioning” and “low functioning”.
•  Those boxes were unfair.
•  They decided who could speak.
•  They decided who got help.
•  This new study could bring those old boxes back.
•  That would be a step backwards.
✅  The main message
•  The study did NOT find genetic types of autism.
•  It found that parent answers can be sorted into groups.
•  The groups link to genes for OTHER things – not autism itself.
•  The headlines have got it wrong.
•  We should be careful before we believe them.
•  Until autism research asks Autistic people about our own lives, every “type” it finds will tell us more about the people doing the looking than about us.
👇🏼 ESSAY: Behaviour mistaken for biology
A critical reading of Litman et al. (2025) – Decomposition of phenotypic heterogeneity in autism reveals underlying genetic programs

Behaviour mistaken for biology

A critical reading of Litman et al. (2025) – Decomposition of phenotypic heterogeneity in autism reveals underlying genetic programs

In July 2025, Litman and colleagues published Decomposition of phenotypic heterogeneity in autism reveals underlying genetic programs in Nature Genetics. Public coverage has, predictably, distorted what the study actually did. Headlines and social media posts have suggested that researchers have at last identified genetic subtypes of autism. Quite simply, they have not. This essay sets out what Litman et al. did, what they did not, and why the distinction matters.

What the study did

The authors took 5,392 Autistic children from the SPARK cohort and applied a generative finite mixture model to 239 phenotypic features. Those features came from four parent-completed instruments: the Social Communication Questionnaire-Lifetime (Rutter et al., 2003), the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (Lam & Aman, 2007), the Child Behavior Checklist 6–18 (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1979), and a developmental milestones form. From this, they generated four latent classes (“Social/behavioral”, “Mixed ASD with DD” (developmental delay), “Moderate challenges”, and “Broadly affected”). They then examined genetic data and reported class-specific patterns of common, de novo, and inherited variation.

What the study did not do

The study did not identify genetic subtypes. The classes were constructed entirely from parent-reported behavioural questionnaires before any genetic analysis took place. Once the classes were fixed, the authors looked for genetic patterns within them. This is a fundamentally different claim from “we found genetic subtypes.” The genetic signal here is downstream of an observer-rated behavioural classification, not the basis for it.

Equally important, the autism polygenic score showed no statistically significant difference between any of the four classes. The genetic differences the authors did find were in polygenic scores for ADHD, IQ, educational attainment, and major depression – co-occurring conditions and contested cognitive constructs, not autism itself. The two classes with the strongest rare-variant signals (“Mixed ASD with DD” and “Broadly affected”) are, on inspection, the classes capturing co-occurring learning disability and developmental delay. That learning  disability has stronger associations with high-impact rare variants is already well-established (Satterstrom et al., 2020). The paper has, in effect, rediscovered this and reframed it as four “classes of autism”.

The framework is value-laden, not neutral

Each instrument used to construct the classes is built on the deficit-medical model. The SCQ asks parents to rate “abnormal” eye contact and “failure” to seek shared enjoyment. The RBS-R rates how “problematic” repetitive behaviours are. The CBCL frames distress, withdrawal, and emotional regulation as “internalising” and “externalising problems”. None of these instruments asks what an Autistic child’s experience is. None engages with monotropism (Murray, Lesser, & Lawson, 2005), sensory difference, the double empathy problem (Milton, 2012), pragmatic Autistic language (Cullen, 2018), or the variability of our Autistic experiences explained by the three-dimensional Autistic space framework (Farahar, 2018/2026) (more detail on these Autistic theories and research). The class names embed value judgements as well: “Broadly affected” – affected by what, and compared to whom? “Moderate challenges” – challenges defined by whose expectations of how a child should be?

Replication is not validation

The authors replicated the four classes in the Simons Simplex Collection. This is methodologically reassuring but conceptually limited. Both cohorts use the same observer-rated, deficit-framed instruments. Reproducing the same classification in another sample tells us the model is consistent; it does not tell us the underlying construct is valid. A consistently flawed measurement remains flawed.

Why this matters

Behaviour observed by parents has been reified into genetic destiny in public conversation. The risk is real. Autistic communities have spent decades dismantling the binaries – high versus low functioning, Asperger’s versus autism, severe versus mild – that reduced individuals to crude tiers (Kapp et al., 2013; den Houting, 2019). A new four-tier vocabulary, dressed in the authority of computational genetics, threatens to bring those binaries back through a side door. Binaries that are illogical given the knowledge that our profiles are never fixed (Farahar, 2018/2026).

The honest contribution of Litman et al. (2025) is narrower than the headlines: parent-reported behavioural patterns cluster in statistically describable ways, and those clusters correlate with genetic variation associated mainly with co-occurring conditions and learning disability. That is interesting. It is not the discovery of autism’s genetic subtypes.

References

Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1979). The Child Behavior Profile: II. Boys aged 12–16 and girls aged 6–11 and 12–16. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47(2), 223–233.

den Houting, J. (2019). Neurodiversity: An insider’s perspective. Autism, 23(2), 271–273.

Kapp, S. K., Gillespie-Lynch, K., Sherman, L. E., & Hutman, T. (2013). Deficit, difference, or both? Autism and neurodiversity. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 59–71.

Lam, K. S. L., & Aman, M. G. (2007). The Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised: independent validation in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(5), 855–866.

Litman, A., Sauerwald, N., Green Snyder, L., Foss-Feig, J., Park, C. Y., Hao, Y., Dinstein, I., Theesfeld, C. L., & Troyanskaya, O. G. (2025). Decomposition of phenotypic heterogeneity in autism reveals underlying genetic programs. Nature Genetics, 57, 1611–1619.

Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.

Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156.

Rutter, M., Bailey, A., & Lord, C. (2003). The Social Communication Questionnaire: Manual. Western Psychological Services.

Satterstrom, F. K., et al. (2020). Large-scale exome sequencing study implicates both developmental and functional changes in the neurobiology of autism. Cell, 180(3), 568–584.e23.

Aucademy Aucademy Explaining Autistic experience, Uncategorized

Routines, Rigidity, and Running Late

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) | Aucademy CIC©

Please credit when sharing. For permissions, contact au-cademy@outlook.com

I’m all turned about this morning. It’s a long bank holiday weekend and I don’t know what to do with myself – the absence of a plan makes me feel emotionally low.

It’s made more uncomfortable by having had to swap my smart watch and my Visible app monitor to opposite arms. (The Visible monitor stays on for 24 hours at a time, other than charging weekly and swapping the band to a dry one after showering – which eventually led to skin irritation, and the need to swap.)

Simple-sounding. And yet this swap has thrown my morning routine into confusion. My brain is so accustomed to how I put the band on and how I glance at my watch that I now have to think very hard about the next steps. So hard, in fact, that I almost forgot deodorant.

We all learn that routine, structure, and predictability are important for Autistic people. Families with Autistic children know this well. As an Autistic person who knows I have routines and a need for predictability, it’s only recently occurred to me just how far that runs.

My Autistic, multiply disabled friend and fellow Aucademy CIC Director, Jessica, worked it out – on yet another drive to a training session we were delivering together, where, as usual, I was late. This time by nearly half an hour.

I’ve tried all sorts of things over the years: making earlier calendar entries to trick myself; changing all my clocks to run ahead; asking my partner to help me – get me out of bed, take my phone in the morning. It didn’t go well.

I’ve come to accept that I will be late for most things, particularly in the morning. I’d put it down to chronic fatigue. Not being a morning person. Finding it just too hard to leave the house (I mean – there are people out there).

But on that 45-minute drive to teach nursing students, Jessica worked it out.

“I’m always behind and late getting up, just like you – but unlike you, I can drop parts of my routine. I won’t have breakfast, or do my hair. But you can’t cut anything from yours.”

For Jessica, who also experiences anxiety-driven needs for autonomy, the pressure and demand of being late is more costly than dropping elements of the routine – the idea of someone calling to hurry them up is unbearable. For me, it’s almost the reverse. That external pressure doesn’t affect me as much as the distress of waking up exhausted and not moving through the predictability of my routine.

My lateness is not personal to you. If I am late for your class, our meeting, that appointment – know that it is not disrespect. I really did do my best to be on time, and if it were easy for me to “just drop some of your routine,” then at 42, I would. It frustrates my neurodivergent partner, who hates being late or having to rush for a train – but he knows I don’t do it on purpose. (At least, he tries to see it that way.)

I even use my lateness as a teaching moment. When I tornado into the simulation hospital ward 20 minutes late, I ask nursing students: “Before we start – discuss in groups what barriers there might be for an Autistic patient arriving to your appointment on time, what reasons they might be late, and how those barriers affect them – like being refused further appointments, or removed from services altogether.” Then I walk them through why I was late.

I can’t fully explain why my routine, in its current form, is so important to me and so difficult to alter, defer from, or break. My smart watch buzzes me awake; I’m still exhausted; I lie there for maybe half an hour. I try to take my duloxetine (for anxiety and pain) at my bedside, to help me surface. Then I check emails, LinkedIn, Aucademy Facebook, and Instagram. Steve has to come and remove the cat from my bed so I can do my morning stretches for pain management. Then shower, dress, makeup, breakfast if there’s time, the rest of my morning meds. And that’s before we get to the micro-routines: the order I do things in the bathroom; how long I clean my teeth to feel properly clean; the order I put my clothes on; my makeup.

And so we return to my disorientation this weekend. A watch and a Visible device on opposite arms, and a ripple effect through everything that follows.

Routines really are important to many of us. Some Autistic people, like Jessica, can override theirs – because the anxiety of being late, and the risk of someone pressuring them to hurry, costs more than simply dropping an element or two. For others, the world becomes utterly disorienting without that predictability, leading to low mood, or even meltdown or shutdown.

If you don’t experience this, please consider the cost to our wellbeing when routines are disrupted or questioned – and the knock-on effects on our timekeeping, our ability to transition, and the very real distress that comes when we are prevented from following them.

Please do share this with anyone who needs to hear it.

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Aucademy Aucademy Uncategorized

Neurodiversity Celebration Week Leaves Someone Out. Let’s Talk About Who.

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) | Aucademy CIC

© Dr Chloe Farahar. Please credit when sharing. For permissions, contact au-cademy@outlook.com

Every year, Neurodiversity Celebration Week arrives with its rainbow banners and its infinity symbols, its acknowledgements of Autistic people, its nods to ADHD and dyslexia. And every year, I find myself returning to the same question: who, exactly, are we celebrating?

I ask this not to diminish what Neurodiversity Celebration Week does well – which is a great deal. Raising awareness of Autistic experience, of attention differences, of dyslexia and dyspraxia and dyscalculia, matters. It reduces stigma. It helps people understand themselves. I have spent a significant portion of my professional and personal life working toward exactly these ends. But I argue that when we celebrate “neurodiversity” and mean only innate, developmental neurodivergence – and when even that is narrowed to autism, ADHD, and dyslexia – we are not celebrating neurodiversity at all. We are celebrating a curated, convenient subset of it.

And the people we are leaving out are, often, the people who need celebration most.

What neurodiversity actually means

Let me be precise about language, because precision here is not pedantry – it is the difference between inclusion and exclusion.

Neurodiversity is a property of groups. It refers to the natural variation in human brains and minds across all of humanity – a population-level phenomenon, not a personal characteristic. It is, as Harvey Blume (1998) elegantly put it, every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general. The neurodiversity of humanity is simply biological fact. All of us – every human being – are part of it.

Neurodivergence is a property of individuals. A neurodivergent person is someone whose body-mind works in ways that differ significantly from what society currently considers neurotypical or neuronormative. This is, critically, a socially defined category: it reflects society’s norms, not fixed biological categories. What is considered neurotypical changes. Who is considered neurodivergent changes.

Simply put: neurodiversity is not something a person “has”. And neurodivergence is not a fixed list of approved conditions.

This matters because the moment we fix a list – autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia – we have already begun to exclude. We have begun to decide whose brain counts as “acceptably different”, and whose remains simply ill, disordered, broken.

The two kinds of neurodivergence – and the one we ignore

There is a useful distinction between innate and acquired neurodivergence. Innate neurodivergence is present from birth. Autistic people, Polyennic (ADHD) people, people who experience dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette’s, synaesthesia – these are forms of innate neurodivergence. They are what we spend most of Neurodiversity Celebration Week discussing.

Acquired neurodivergence refers to brain differences that emerge after birth – through injury, illness, chronic pain, stroke, neurodegenerative processes, or significant life experience. These too are forms of neurodivergence. A person who acquires a traumatic brain injury has a brain that works differently. A person with acquired deafness or vision loss has a brain that has reorganised around that sensory change. A person who has intensively practised meditation for decades has measurably different brain wave patterns and altered sensory processing. A meditating monk is, in a meaningful sense, neurodivergent.

And then there is the group that Neurodiversity Celebration Week most consistently ignores: people whose psychological responses to the world – to trauma, to adversity, to a disordered society – look different from what society considers “normal”. People who hear voices. People who experience what psychiatry labels schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety. People who are, in my framework and the framework I first developed in my chapter in The Neurodiversity Reader (Farahar, 2020), psychologically-divergent, who are under the neurodivergent umbrella.

The case for psychological divergence as neurodivergence

I want to be direct here, because this is where the argument becomes uncomfortable for some – including some within the neurodiversity community itself.

The dominant pathology paradigm – the framework that underpins mainstream psychiatry – holds that psychological and emotional distress equates to illness. That there is one right, normal, healthy brain, and any significant variation from it is disorder. That the person, therefore, is the thing to be treated, changed, altered, managed.

This paradigm does not stand up to scrutiny. As the Chair of the DSM-V task force acknowledged in 2013, definitive biogenetic causes of mental illnesses simply have not been found – not for any mental illness (Kupfer, 2013). The DSM-IV itself stated plainly that its categories were fuzzy, descriptive constructs, not diseases with clear biological boundaries or causes (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). And critically – and this is the finding that transformed my own thinking during my psychology degree – insisting that “mental illness is an illness like any other” paradoxically increases the need for social distance from those so labelled (Corrigan, 2016; Haslam & Kvaale, 2015). The neurobiological “othering” of people in psychological distress has proliferated stigma, not reduced it.

If not illness, then what?

The evidence points clearly toward one answer: trauma. The variables that correlate most strongly with what we call “mental illness” are not genetic or biological factors, but traumatic experiences – poverty, racism, neglect, assault, bereavement, structural violence (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018; Read et al., 2009). Our brains respond to trauma. They respond in any number of ways – voice-hearing, extreme states of mood, altered perception, withdrawal. These are psychologically-divergent responses to a disordered society. They are not symptoms of illness. They are the brain’s attempts to protect us.

Simply: when we pathologise these responses, we remove responsibility from the traumatising society and place it on the individual whose brain has tried its best. And we exclude that person from the neurodiversity that, by definition, should already include them.

What happens when we exclude psychological divergence from our celebrations

The consequences of this exclusion are not abstract. They are the people who sit in the margins of Neurodiversity Celebration Week and wonder if their kind of different counts. The person who hears voices and sees the Autistic community celebrated but is told their experience is not neurodivergence – it is illness. The person whose depression has left them unable to work, whose anxiety has reshaped every relationship they have, who does not feature in a single infographic about “brain differences”.

In my research – specifically, in my work on Stigmaphrenia©, the neurodiversity play I developed in 2012 and subsequently investigated through my PhD at the University of Kent – I found that when people with psychological divergences encountered the neurodiversity narrative, something shifted. Not just in their understanding of others, but in their understanding of themselves. Actors who took on the roles of psychologically-divergent characters in the play described reframing their own experiences from pathology to neurodivergence. One interviewee described how, before engaging with the neurodiversity narrative, they kept very quiet about their mental health – and how, after, they actively encouraged others to speak about theirs. This is self-stigma reduction. This is the neurodiversity paradigm doing what it is capable of doing, if we let it.

The neurodiversity paradigm – as a social model, not a biological claim – can do this because it does not require a biogenetic cause to grant personhood. It requires only the recognition that human brains and minds vary, that variation is not disorder, and that a person’s divergence from the “norm” is as much a reflection of the norm as it is of the person. Today’s neurodivergent is tomorrow’s neurotypical, as the norms of society shift. That is not a weakness of the framework. That is its extraordinary, liberatory potential.

Who does Neurodiversity Celebration Week need to include?

The full picture of neurodivergent experience – the one this week should celebrate – includes:

Innate neurodivergences (present from birth): Autistic experience; Polyennic/ADHD experience; dyslexia; dyspraxia; dyscalculia; Tourette’s and tic experiences; synaesthesia; congenital deafness; congenital blindness.

Acquired neurodivergences (emerging across the lifespan): traumatic brain injury; stroke; post-traumatic stress; acquired deafness or vision loss; brain changes from chronic pain; neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis; changes from intensive practice.

Psychological divergences (responses to a disordered society): voice-hearing; extreme states of mood; anxiety; depression; post-traumatic responding; experiences currently labelled as psychosis, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, and so on.

This is not a case for abandoning support for Autistic people, or for ADHD, or for dyslexia. That support is hard-won and still insufficient. It is a case for expanding the circle of who this week – and this movement – considers worthy of understanding, acceptance, and celebration.

What you can do

Quite simply: this week, look at who you are sharing content about, who you are amplifying, and who you are leaving out. Ask whether your workplace’s neurodiversity event would welcome a person who hears voices. Ask whether your school’s celebration includes the young person in crisis. Ask who benefits from the neurodiversity framework you are promoting – and who it still excludes.

Then expand your circle.

The neurodiversity of humanity is not a curated list. It is all of us.

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) is an Autistic researcher, founder of Aucademy CIC, and Programme Manager for Learning Disability and Autism at an NHS Mental Health Trust. Their research on Stigmaphrenia© and the application of the neurodiversity paradigm to psychological divergence was conducted at the University of Kent with Economic and Social Research Council funding.

Key references:

Farahar, C. (2020). Stigmaphrenia: Reducing mental health stigma with a script about neurodiversity. In D. Milton (Ed.), The Neurodiversity Reader. Pavilion Publishing.

Blume, H. (1998). Neurodiversity. The Atlantic.

Johnstone, L., & Boyle, M. (2018). The Power Threat Meaning Framework. British Psychological Society.

Walker, N. (2014). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and definitions. Neurocosmopolitanism.

Downloadable infographics to share with credit

PPT psychosis and other missed ND NCW_InfographicsDownload
PDF Dr Farahar psychosis and other missed ND NCW_InfographicsDownload

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Aucademy Aucademy Uncategorized

Neurodiversity Celebration Week: A Free Resource for Everyone

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) | Aucademy CIC

Jump to:

Neurodiversity Celebration Week is one of those things I have complicated feelings about. On one hand, I am deeply glad it exists. On the other, I watch it narrow, year on year, into a celebration of a few neurodivergences most people have heard of – whilst the rest watch from the edges.

Simply put: neurodiversity is not a synonym for autism. It is not even a synonym for neurodivergence. Neurodiversity is the natural variation of human brains and minds across all of humanity – a population-level concept, not a personal characteristic. Neurodivergence is about individuals who currently don’t (and might not ever) meet neuronormative expectations: Autistic people, Polyennic people (often called ADHD), Dyslexic and Dyspraxic people, people who experience Dyscalculia, Tourette’s, Synaesthesia, and those whose brains have been reshaped by stroke, trauma, chronic pain, or other acquired differences. All of them deserve this week.

So, I made something. The presentation below is free to use, share, and adapt (with credit). It covers what neurodiversity actually means, the full breadth of neurodivergent experience, key frameworks for understanding Autistic and Polyennic minds, your legal rights under the Equality Act 2010, what reasonable adjustments look like in practice, how to know your own neurological profile, and how to build genuinely neuroaffirming environments. It is grounded in the research and the lived experience of neurodivergent communities – not in deficit narratives or outdated stereotypes.

Use it in your school. Use it in your workplace. Use it at home. Pass it on.

[Download the presentation below – it is free, just remember to credit Dr Chloe Farahar, Aucademy.co.uk . There is a PDF version and then a PPT download version]

Downloadable files

PDF DOWNLOAD NeurodiversityCelebrationWeek_Dr_FaraharDownload
PPT DOWNLOAD NeurodiversityCelebrationWeek_Dr_FaraharDownload

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Aucademy Aucademy Uncategorized

Why “Autism Is Not A Spectrum” – But Not For the Reasons You May Have Heard

By Dr Chloe Farahar | Autistic Researcher, Project Manager for Learning Disability and Autism at Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust, and Founder of Aucademy CIC

The Spectrum Was Never Fit For Purpose – And Uta Frith Still Doesn’t Understand Why…

Frith, in her recent TES interview, claims the spectrum has “collapsed” because it includes too many people. She is “frightened” by rising diagnoses. She questions masking is even a thing preventing many from being recognised as Autistic. She wants autism restricted to a smaller, more easily observable group. She proposes “contraindicators” – including the ability to converse smoothly – that would rule out the majority of Autistic women, people of colour, and late-diagnosed adults.

Simply put: this interview is not just scientifically outdated. It is actively harmful. And I can’t decide if Frith was being lazy, ignorant, or purposely incendiary in her interview, claiming as she did that there is no evidence or science for many of our experiences.

First, I need to say: I actually agree with Frith! She is right that the “autism spectrum” is not a useful concept. I have thought this for years, and I have published on why. But I argue this from a fundamentally different position to Dame Uta Frith, and that difference matters enormously for the lives of Autistic people.

Let’s pick apart her opinions one-by-one, shall we?

The Wrong Reasons to Reject the Spectrum

Frith is right that Wing’s “spectrum” has failed. But she is wrong about why. The spectrum failed not because it became too inclusive, but because it was never a remotely adequate framework to begin with. It was always perceived (and I have tried to find an image in the literature to work out why!) as a flattened, linear continuum – running from “severe” to “mild”, from “low-functioning” to “high-functioning”, even latterly from “male autism” to “female autism” – that told us nothing about how any individual Autistic person actually lived and experienced their life.

My work, published in the Oxford University Press Collection Beyond Autistic Stereotypes (Farahar, in print 2026), proposes an entirely different framework: the Three-Dimensional Autistic Space. Rather than placing Autistic people on a linear line, this framework recognises that Autistic experience exists across three dimensions – internal (what is not visible to outsiders), external (what observers can see), and temporal (how our experience changes across time, context, and environment). This is precisely why a single diagnosis in early childhood cannot – and should not – be treated as the definitive account of a person’s Autisticness across their lifetime.

Webpage on the Three Dimensional Autistic Space

The spectrum’s failure was never that it included too many of us. It was that it was designed by non-Autistic observers, looking into the Autistic space from the outside, and only seeing what was immediately visible to their bias. This “outsiders-looking-in” phenomenon explains the historical “invisibility” of Autistic women, Autistic people of colour, and those of us whose internality – the richness of our inner Autistic lives – was simply not in the biased telescopes of researchers like Frith.

Frith simply doesn’t seem to like to read the work by Autistic researchers:

“…people still hang on to the idea that there is something that unites all the people who are diagnosed as [A]utistic. I don’t believe that any more.”

Well, Uta, I do. We are Autistic because, as Trauma Geek explains:

“Innate Autistic traits are neural hyper-connection, monotropism, and bottom-up processing.”

More on Trauma Geek’s definition:

Innate Autistic traits are natural characteristics that Autistic people are born with:

Neural hyper-connection: Autistic brains often have more connections between different brain regions, which can create deep thinking and notice patterns others might miss.

Monotropism: This means focusing intensely on one thing at a time, like shining a powerful spotlight rather than a dimmer light over many areas. This can create deep expertise and passionate interests.

Bottom-up processing: Autistic people often process information by starting with details first, then building up to the bigger picture. Most non-Autistic people do the opposite.

We are Autistic, based on community definitions of our experiences.

We are Autistic because our monotropic, interest-based model of mind (Murray, et al., 2005), impacts our sensory processing, and we have an Autistic pragmatic language, highlighting that we Autistic people have pragmatic language abilities, we just process meaning differently to non-Autistic people (Cullen, 2018), which explains the double empathy problem, demonstrating there is a translation breakdown between Autistic and non-Autistic communication and exchanges (Milton, 2012), and the variation within our community outside of these innate connections are because we exist in the Three-Dimensional Autistic Space, with our Autistic experiences – internal and external – fluctuating across time, the Autistic space placing, as it does, all Autistic people (discovered and undiscovered) in a humanising space away from the binary and obsolete spectrum.

“Frightened” by Our Numbers

Frith says the rate of later diagnoses is “just frightening”. I propose a different interpretation. When more people are discovering they are Autistic, particularly those who were historically excluded from diagnosis – women, people of colour, those of us who mask, those who were written off as “anxious” or “difficult” – this is not a crisis of overdiagnosis. This is a correction of decades of systematic underdiagnosis rooted in racial, gender, and class bias.

My chapter in the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies (Farahar, 2022) argues how Autistic identity, culture, community and space are protective factors for wellbeing. The evidence is clear: discovering one’s Autistic identity – particularly through community rather than purely clinical process – is associated with reduced internalised ableism, improved self-worth, and better mental health outcomes (Botha, 2020; Botha & Frost, 2020). Every late-discovered person who finds out who they are is not a problem to be solved. They are a person finally finding the language for their experience, and potentially finding their community.

Frith is frightened by our numbers. I would ask: why? What is the cost to non-Autistic society of more of us knowing ourselves?

As I commented on LinkedIn:

“She claims to be frightened by the number of us. Good. This means people who benefit from the neuronormative society are worried that with so many of us working out we’re Autistic things will have to change.

Things will and are changing.

We will keep fighting for better lives for those of us less likely to be employed, and more likely to die by suicide.

We will keep fighting for those in our community who do not currently (maybe ever) share a reciprocal communication, with or without a learning disability, to be humanised and get services and support they deserve.

People like Frith don’t want us Autistic people making the changes.

I refuse to ever view Autistic people the way obsolete “autism” researchers do. We all deserve better.”

Masking: Where Is your Evidence, Exactly, Uta?

Perhaps the most egregious claim in the entire interview is that masking has “no scientific basis”. I would invite Frith to read the House of Lords Autism Act 2009 and New Strategy report (2025), which explicitly references masking and camouflaging as well-evidenced phenomena that contribute to later diagnosis, particularly in women. I would invite her to read NHS England’s own guidance on autism-informed inpatient care, which discusses masking directly. I would invite her to engage with the substantial body of published research on masking (Hull et al., 2017; Pearson & Rose, 2021) – none of which is referenced in her TES interview.

There is more than adequate scientific basis for masking. The evidence is there. To claim otherwise is not rigour – it is a failure to engage with a large body of work simply because much of it was produced by, or in partnership with, Autistic researchers.

And this raises the deepest problem with Frith’s interview. She presents her personal impressions – “I expect we could say we are all masking, all the time” – as though they carry scientific weight, whilst dismissing the lived accounts of thousands of Autistic people as scientifically unfounded. This is, quite simply, a double standard. It also demonstrates she hasn’t picked up our research in the last 10 years – masking is nothing like she seems to think: it’s an unconscious, learnt, trauma response we develop early in Autistic life.

The Dangerous Logic of “Contraindicators”

Frith proposes that smooth conversation is a “contraindicator” for autism diagnosis. If a person converses easily with you, she suggests, they are probably not Autistic. This is one of the most dangerous things in the entire interview.

The entire premise rests on an understanding of communication that was challenged – with rigorous evidence – by Dr Damian Milton in his foundational 2012 paper on the Double Empathy Problem. Milton, an Autistic academic, demonstrated that communication breakdown between Autistic and non-Autistic people is mutual. It is not a deficit located in the Autistic person. A non-Autistic clinician interviewing an Autistic person may find the conversation flows perfectly well – because the Autistic person has spent their life learning to communicate across a neurological divide, because masking is precisely the adaptation to neurotypical social norms that Frith simultaneously dismisses and uses as evidence.

Frith’s “contraindicators” framework would systematically exclude from diagnosis the very people who have historically been most harmed by missing recognition: masked Autistic adults, particularly women, but also many men and non-binary people, who have spent decades unconsciously suppressing their Autistic ways of being at enormous cost to their mental health, their energy, and their sense of self as a means of coping with the trauma of being Autistic in a non-Autistic world. These are the people most likely to present as conversationally fluent in a clinical interview. These are also the people most likely to die by suicide (Cassidy et al., 2014).

I note, too, that Frith’s framework of “contraindicators” reproduces exactly the gendered and racialised assumptions that have driven decades of missed and dismissed diagnoses. When she questions whether there is really a “cultural bias against identifying girls and women as Autistic”, comparing this, bizarrely, to psychopathy rates in men, she reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the structural and cultural mechanisms through which diagnostic bias operates.

There is extensive evidence – not just anecdote – that the diagnostic tools, the behavioural checklists, the presentation criteria, were developed almost exclusively from research on white boys (Loomes et al., 2017; Russell et al., 2022), and this narrow telescopic view is perpetuated ad infinitum. That is not a coincidence. That is the “culture of autism” – the pathological paradigm – in operation. Frith is far behind us Autistic natural and professional researchers: we’ve already read the Swedish study that shows the binary (agreed, problematic framing, as it does not include non-binary or trans people) male-female ratio of Autistic people is equal – Frith is still quoting old ratios of 4:1 and 3:1!

Where Are the Autistic Theorists?

Read the entire TES interview. Notice what is absent. There is not a single mention of an Autistic researcher. Not Damian Milton and the Double Empathy Problem. Not Dinah Murray and Fergus Murray’s Monotropism theory – developed by Autistic people, for Autistic people, to explain Autistic cognition from the inside. Not Rachel Cullen’s Autistic Language Hypothesis. Not the growing body of Participatory Autism Research. Not the work of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Not my own work, or the work of any of the other Autistic academics currently reshaping how we understand Autistic experience.

https://aucademy.co.uk/theories-about-autistic-experience/

This absence is not incidental. It reflects a research paradigm – the one Frith helped build – that has consistently treated Autistic people as objects of study rather than producers of knowledge. In my presentation Theories of “Autism” and Autistic Theories of Autistic Experience (Farahar, 2022), I set out the contrast directly: on one side, neurotypical deficit theories – behavioural, biological, cognitive – that look at Autistic people from the outside; on the other, Autistic theories developed by Autistic people from lived expertise, which offer entirely richer and more accurate accounts of how we actually experience the world.

The field has moved. Frith has not.

The Culture of “Autism” and the Harm It Causes

In my 2022 chapter in the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies, I argue that there are two fundamentally different “cultures” of autism. The first – what I call the “culture of autism” – is the pathological paradigm: Autistic people as disordered, deficient, requiring intervention and cure. This is the culture Frith’s career has perpetuated, contributed to, and embedded themselves in. The second is Autistic culture: a neurodiversity paradigm, a cultural minority framework, in which Autistic identity, community, language, and space are recognised as the foundations of wellbeing.

The harm of the first culture is well-documented. It produces internalised self-stigma and negative self-worth (Botha & Frost, 2020). It leaves people in what I have described as “purgatory” – unable to belong to non-Autistic spaces (even when they mask), and simultaneously unable to find belonging in Autistic community, because they have been taught that being Autistic means being deficient. This is not a minor academic distinction. This is the difference between life and death for a significant number of Autistic people. Autistic people are disproportionately likely to experience suicidal ideation and to die by suicide (Hirvikoski et al., 2016; Cassidy et al., 2014). The pathological narrative – the one Frith continues to promote – contributes to this.

What We Actually Need

We do not need a narrowed, dehumanising diagnostic category. We do not need a scientist “frightened” by how many of us there are. We do not need the spectrum replaced with two crude groups and a set of “contraindicators” designed by a non-Autistic researcher based on her personal, unscientific impressions.

What we need is precisely what my work in the NHS Learning Disability and Autism Programme, and through Aucademy, is working towards: systems, services, and clinical frameworks that are built with Autistic people as decision-makers, not consultees. Frameworks that recognise the fluidity, dimensionality, and lived richness of Autistic experience. Discovery processes that account for masking, for late identification, for the systemic biases that have meant that for decades certain Autistic people – women, people of colour, those without accompanying learning disability – were not counted.

Uta Frith does not speak for this Autistic researcher, or for the Autistic community and their loved ones. Things are changing. We will keep fighting for better lives for those of us who are most marginalised – those of us less likely to be employed, more likely to die by suicide, more likely to be missed, dismissed, or misdiagnosed. We will keep fighting for those in our community who do not currently share reciprocal spoken communication, with or without a learning disability, to be humanised and to access the services and support they – we – deserve.

People like Frith don’t want Autistic people making the changes. But we are. And we will continue to do so.

References

Botha, M. (2020). Autistic community connectedness as a buffer against the minority stress of stigma. University of Surrey doctoral thesis.

Botha, M. & Frost, D. M. (2020). Extending the Minority Stress Model to understand mental health problems experienced by the Autistic population. Society and Mental Health, 10(1), 20–34.

Cassidy, S., Bradley, P., Robinson, J., Allison, C., McHugh, M. & Baron-Cohen, S. (2014). Suicidal ideation and suicide plans or attempts in adults with Asperger’s syndrome attending a specialist diagnostic clinic. Lancet Psychiatry, 1(2), 142–147.

Farahar, C. (2022). Autistic identity, culture, community, and space for wellbeing. In D. Milton & S. Ryan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies (1st ed.). Routledge.

Farahar, C. (2026, in print). The Farahar and Foster Three-Dimensional Autistic Space: Dismantling the ‘autism spectrum’ and centring observer bias in the missing, dismissing, and misdiagnosis of Autistic people. In Herbert, R., Shaughnessy, N. & Williams, E. (Eds.), Beyond Autistic Stereotypes: New Perspectives on Identities, Gender, and Experience. Oxford University Press.

Fyfe, C., Winell, H., Dougherty, J., Gutmann, D. H., Kolevzon, A., Marrus, N., … & Sandin, S. (2026). Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: Population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study. BMJ, 392. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-084164

Hirvikoski, T., Mittendorfer-Rutz, E., Boman, M., Larsson, H., Lichtenstein, P. & Bolte, S. (2016). Premature mortality in autism spectrum disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry, 208(3), 232–238.

House of Lords (2025). Time to Deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the New Autism Strategy.

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.

Murray, D., Lesser, M. & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156.

NHS England (2025). Autism-Informed Inpatient Care.

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“Profound” Misunderstanding: Why The Lancet Commission on Autism & The Guardian Got It Wrong

Aucademy Aucademy

Dr Chloe Farahar

Aucademy Aucademy

[Please note: there is a blog version, a downloadable essay version, and a downloadable easy-read version, dependent on your reading preferences. Click the heading for easy read and/or essay versions in the content list above]

February 2026 and The Guardian publishes another “autism” article, the hot topic for many news outlets in recent years. This time, informing the public that:

A new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ is under consideration. Here’s what parents need to know.
Category describes people who have little or no language, an IQ of less than 50 and require 24-hour supervision…

The Guardian picked up on the “profound autism” narrative from a Commission piece from 2022, when The Lancet published what it presented as a landmark Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism. Led by Catherine Lord and Tony Charman, this 64-page document promised to answer a question that matters deeply to Autistic people and their families worldwide: what can be done, right now, to address our needs?

I read it with hope. I finished it with frustration.

I argue that this Commission – for all its scale, for all its data, for all its institutional weight – fundamentally misunderstands what Autistic people need, misrepresents the evidence it claims to champion, and contradicts itself on some of the most critical points it raises. Worse still, it does all of this without meaningful input from the very people it claims to serve.

Nothing About Us, Without Us – Except This, Apparently

Let me start with what should be the most basic requirement for any document that presumes to shape the future of Autistic lives: Autistic involvement.

This Commission lists researchers, clinicians, and a small number of advocates among its contributors. But there is no evidence of meaningful Autistic co-production in its design, methodology, or conclusions. There is no evidence of family involvement in shaping its recommendations. The case studies in Panel 1 – Adir, Franco, Sofia, Samir – are written about Autistic people, not by them. Their stories are told through the lens of parents, carers, and professionals.

This is not a minor oversight. It is a structural failure. The House of Lords’ Time to Deliver report (2025) makes the principle clear: co-production means Autistic people and those who support them have an equal role in designing and delivering policy and services. As Stephen Kinnock MP put it, any strategy developed in the “ivory tower of Whitehall or Westminster” – or, one might add, the ivory tower of academia – without genuine co-production is “doomed to fail.”

The Commission talks about Autistic people. It does not talk with them. And that distinction matters enormously when you are proposing new categories, new labels, and new frameworks that will shape how Autistic people are understood, treated, and resourced for decades to come.

The “Profound Autism” Problem

The Commission’s most controversial proposal is the introduction of a new administrative term: “profound autism.” This would apply to Autistic people who require 24-hour access to a carer, cannot be left alone, and cannot manage basic daily needs independently. The Commission defines this not by Autistic characteristics, but by co-occurring learning disability (an IQ below 50) and/or being non-speaking or minimally speaking.

I want to be direct about what is happening here. This term does not describe a type of autism. It describes the intersection of autism with other experiences and conditions that have their own research bases, their own communities, and their own needs. By collapsing everything into a single label attached to autism, the Commission obscures rather than illuminates the support needs involved. It reinstates functioning labels by another name – precisely the binary that the Autistic community has spent years explaining is harmful – and then wraps it in the language of advocacy, as though pathologising people more thoroughly is somehow doing them a favour.

A Commission That Contradicts Itself

Here is what strikes me most forcefully about this document: it contradicts itself on one of the most fundamental points it raises.

On page 274, the Commission states clearly that “the presentation of autism changes over time, requiring different interventions across the life span.” It discusses heterogeneity at length. It acknowledges that clinical presentations vary, that needs fluctuate, and that early childhood profiles do not reliably predict adult outcomes. It even notes that some children initially meeting “profound autism” criteria moved out of that category between the ages of 9 and 18, as a result of changes in language and cognitive development.

And then, in the very same document, the Commission proposes a fixed diagnostic sub-category – “profound autism” – defined by static criteria applied from early school age onwards. It acknowledges, almost in passing, that this term is “not appropriate for young children” because presentations change. But it still proposes it as a stable, lifelong administrative designation.

Quite simply, you cannot simultaneously argue that autism presentations are fluid and then propose a fixed label based on a snapshot of ability at one point in time. These two positions are logically incompatible. The Commission appears not to notice this contradiction, or if it does, it does not resolve it.

Women Don’t Have “Different Autism” – They Experience Different Prejudice

The Commission’s treatment of gender is another area where the framing goes wrong. Throughout the document, there is an implicit suggestion that autism may present differently in women and girls – that there is something about “female autism” that warrants separate investigation.

I want to be clear: there is no “female autism.” There is autism. What differs is not the neurology, but the response to it. Women and girls (and non-binary and trans people) are subject to different societal expectations, different diagnostic biases, and different forms of prejudice. They are more likely to mask. They are more likely to be misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, or anxiety conditions before anyone considers autism. They are more likely to have their needs dismissed.

This is not a neurological difference. It is a prejudice difference. It is neurosexism playing out in diagnostic systems that were built around a narrow, male-centric prototype of autism. And when a Commission of this stature frames the issue as though women have a different “presentation” of autism, rather than naming the systemic bias that causes them to be missed, it reinforces the very problem it claims to want to solve. As the Time to Deliver report heard, better understanding of autism in women and girls is key – but the barrier is not that their autism is different: it is that the systems designed to identify it are inadequate.

The Evidence Problem: Championing Interventions the Evidence Doesn’t Support

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this Commission is its insistence on “evidence-based intervention” whilst simultaneously championing approaches for which the evidence is, to put it charitably, weak.

The Commission places considerable emphasis on early intensive behavioural intervention (EIBI) – approaches rooted in applied behaviour analysis (ABA) delivered at high intensity (20 to 40 hours per week) over multiple years. These are presented as among the more “well-established” treatments for autism.

But what does the actual evidence say? The Cochrane Collaboration – the gold standard for systematic reviews of healthcare interventions – reviewed EIBI in 2018 and found precisely this: “there is weak evidence that early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is an effective treatment for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.” The review found no evidence that EIBI reduces the severity of autism or changes so-called “problem behaviour.” The evidence quality was rated as low to very low, based on just five studies, only one of which used a randomised controlled design.

Let me say that again. The Commission positions itself as a champion of evidence-based practice – and then promotes interventions that Cochrane reviews describe as weakly evidenced. This is not merely inconsistent. It is the kind of inconsistency that has real consequences for Autistic children and their families, who may be directed towards intensive, expensive, and potentially harmful programmes on the basis of a prestigious Commission’s endorsement.

And the Commission does not engage meaningfully with the growing body of evidence – including from Autistic researchers and the Autistic community – suggesting that ABA-based approaches may cause psychological harm. The Commission does not address this. It does not wrestle with the ethical implications of subjecting young Autistic children to 40 hours a week of compliance-based training. It simply assumes that more intervention, delivered earlier and more intensively, is better. This assumption is not supported by the evidence it claims to value.

What Should Have Been Written Instead

This Commission had the resources and the platform to do something transformative. What it should have done is centre the question that the neurodiversity paradigm asks: not “how do we change Autistic people?” but “how do we change the environments that disable them?”

It should have started from the principle that Autistic people – all Autistic people, including those with learning disabilities, those who are non-speaking, and those who need lifelong support – are whole human beings whose quality of life depends far more on the environments they inhabit and the support they receive than on any category we attach to them.

It should have engaged with the evidence on what actually improves Autistic wellbeing: community, belonging, Autistic identity, accessible environments, and relationships built on understanding rather than compliance. It should have asked Autistic people – genuinely, meaningfully, as co-producers and decision-makers – what they need. And it should have held itself to the same evidence standards it demands of others, rather than endorsing behavioural interventions that its own cited evidence base does not convincingly support.

Ultimately, the word “profound” in this Commission should describe the change we commit to making – not the label we attach to the people who need it most.

Dr Chloe Farahar is an Autistic researcher, educator, and Programme Manager for the Learning Disability and Autism Programme at Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust.

References

Bottema-Beutel, K., Kapp, S.K., Lester, J.N., Sasson, N.J. and Hand, B.N. (2021) ‘Avoiding ableist language: Suggestions for autism researchers’, Autism in Adulthood, 3(1), pp. 18–29.

House of Lords Autism Act 2009 Committee (2025) Time to Deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the New Autism Strategy. London: House of Lords.

Lord, C., Charman, T., Havdahl, A. et al. (2022) ‘The Lancet Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism’, The Lancet, 399(10321), pp. 271–334.

NHS England (2025) Autism-Informed Inpatient Care. London: NHS England.

Reichow, B., Hume, K., Barton, E.E. and Boyd, B.A. (2018) ‘Early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 5, Art. No.: CD009260.

Walker, N. (2021) Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment and Postnormal Possibilities. Fort Worth: Autonomous Press.

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Out now! Our Aucademy interview special: The Doctor, The Poet, & The Reverend. Tom Delahunt talks about his ADHD life and his search for neurodivergent people to share space with

2-hour interview special now available on our YouTube channel!

The Doctor, The Poet, & The Reverend: Aucademy Educates. ADHD, discovery journeys, & finding neurodivergent others

In this Aucademy special, Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) talks with Tom Delahunt (AKA The HoboPoet, he/him) and Reverend Lizzie Hopthrow (she/her) in The Quiet View yurt just outside Canterbury.

CONTENT NOTE: sporadic loud banging (try turning the sound down and using closed captions); discussion of suicide; mental health; addiction.

Chloe interviews Polyennic (ADHD) PhD candidate, Tom, and explores his journey and desire to share the neurodivergent canopy. At Rev Lizzie Hopthrow’s Quiet View, in a beautiful yurt, Aucademy discuss the importance of finding community and sharing curious spaces with other neurodivergent people.

For a written, call-and-response piece between Tom and Chloe, head here: https://aucademy.co.uk/2025/11/19/sha…

Tom Delahunt is a doctoral candidate, dyslexic academic, TimesHEA winner (2019), and author of The Wandering Lamb. Tom’s PhD research interests lie in exploring the gaps between art and health. Link to Tom’s book: https://bookshop.canterbury.ac.uk/The…

Revd Lizzie Hopthrow is Warden of the Quiet View, and an Anglican priest and retired hospice chaplain. She is passionate about encouraging people to find stillness, comfort or inspiration when they visit. Her experiences in the hospice movement and the Taizé Community together with influences from Eastern spirituality have formed her understanding of the Universality of Divine Love. She is a very experienced labyrinth facilitator and trainer and has been published extensively on her national labyrinth work. Lizzie is a recipient of the Janki Foundation’s award – 100 Women of Spirit Link to the Quiet View https://www.quietview.co.uk/about-us

*Please note we are not clinicians or diagnosticians*

Dr Chloe Farahar (they/she) – Autistic academic (prejudice-reduction; Autistic wellbeing; neurodiversity), educator, & self-advocate

Aucademy Aucademy Aucademy in the news, Autistic Resources, Uncategorized

What are the outcomes for the Autism Act 2009 review, held 2025?

Aucademy’s Dr Chloe Farahar was invited to a closed session to contribute to the Autism Act 2009 review, held between April and June 2025 – and we wrote about what their session discussed, here, and the more detailed Westminster meeting notes and questions asked can be found here.

In this blog, we summarise what the 254 page report of the review sessions found.

Time to Deliver: Making the Autism Act Work for Autistic People

November 2025 | The Aucademy Team

The Verdict: Progress Without Purpose

A landmark House of Lords report has delivered a powerful verdict on sixteen years of autism policy in England. The message is clear: whilst awareness has grown, outcomes for Autistic people have not improved. It’s time for genuine transformation, not just tweaks around the edges.

When the Autism Act was passed in 2009, Autistic people were largely invisible to services. We fell through gaps between mental health and learning disability provision. The Act changed that – or at least, it was supposed to. The Select Committee’s findings tell a different story.

Simply put, the system isn’t working. Over 172,000 people are waiting for autism assessment, with many facing delays of two years or more. The NICE guideline says thirteen weeks. The reality? Some people wait five years. And when they finally get that diagnosis, post-diagnostic support is virtually non-existent. As one witness told the Committee: “You get your diagnosis and fall off a cliff.”

What Actually Matters: Beyond Awareness

The report exposes a fundamental problem with how autism is approached in public services. We’ve moved from invisibility to awareness, but awareness without acceptance is meaningless. Autistic people still face a 20-year life expectancy gap. Eight in ten experience mental health issues. Only three in ten are in employment. These aren’t just statistics – they represent lives constrained by systemic failures.

The Committee heard powerful testimony from Autistic people and those who support them. The message was consistent: public spaces remain inaccessible, healthcare is often traumatic, education excludes rather than includes, and support arrives only at crisis point. One particularly striking finding? Autistic children are five times more likely to be excluded from school. This isn’t about “challenging behaviour” – it’s about environments that disable.

A New Strategy: From Crisis to Prevention

The current autism strategy (2021-26) set ambitious goals but, after its first year, successive governments produced no implementation plan or funding. The Committee demands better for the new strategy launching in July 2026.

Their vision is transformative: a shift from crisis-driven to preventative support, from diagnosis-dependent to needs-based provision, from segregation to genuine inclusion. Importantly, they insist that Autistic people must be meaningfully involved at every stage – not just consulted, but leading the change.

Key Changes That Matter

The Committee makes over 80 recommendations. Here are the ones that could genuinely transform Autistic people’s lives:

Public Understanding: A government-led campaign to improve understanding and acceptance, with mandatory training for all public-facing staff. Aiming to move from “autism awareness” to creating accessible environments and challenging damaging misconceptions.

Healthcare Revolution: Digital flags in patient records, hospital passports, and mandatory Oliver McGowan training. The goal? Making reasonable adjustments standard practice, not special favours. The Committee also demands action on the shocking statistic that Autistic people die 20 years younger than non-autistic people.

Education Transformation: An end to off-rolling and illegal exclusions, whole-school approaches to inclusion, and accountability measures with teeth. Schools must become places where neurodiversity is valued, not punished.

Employment Support: A specialist jobs service, expanded supported employment, and incentives for employers to make genuine adjustments. The economic case is clear: every pound invested in employment support returns four pounds to the economy.

Community Support: Investment in preventative, stepped support that keeps people out of crisis. The Committee found that crisis-driven approaches cost more in both money and lives. Early intervention isn’t just humane, it’s economically essential.

Making This Information Accessible

At Aucademy, we believe information about Autistic people should be accessible to Autistic people. That’s why we’ve created two summary versions of this important report:

• Standard Summary: A comprehensive two-page overview covering key findings, recommendations, and implementation requirements. Perfect for professionals, advocates, and anyone wanting detailed insights.

24.11.2025 Autism_Act_Report_SummaryDownload

• Easy Read Summary: An accessible version using clear language, visual symbols, and simple tables. Designed specifically for people with a learning disability and/or Autistic people who prefer information presented simply and clearly.

24.11.2025 Aucademy Autism_Act_Report_Summary_EasyReadDownload

Please share them widely – this information belongs to our community.

What Now? From Report to Reality

Reports don’t change lives – action does. The Committee has provided the evidence, the framework, and the mandate. Now it’s up to all of us to demand implementation.

For Autistic people and our allies, this report is validation and ammunition. It confirms what we’ve been saying for years: the problem isn’t autism, it’s the disabling environments and systems we navigate. Use this report in your advocacy, your complaints, your campaigns for change.

For professionals, this report is both challenge and opportunity. It demands we move beyond awareness to genuine culture change. It requires us to centre Autistic voices, not just consult them. And it insists we stop treating reasonable adjustments as optional extras.

The Time is Now

The report’s title – “Time to Deliver” – captures the urgency. Sixteen years after the Autism Act, Autistic people are still fighting for basic rights and recognition. The Committee has thrown down the gauntlet to government, to services, to society.

As the report states: “Autistic people are as diverse as our country and represent an integral, valuable part of it.” It’s time that diversity was celebrated, that value was recognised, and that Autistic people could thrive, not just survive.

The new autism strategy launches in July 2026. Between now and then, we have a window to influence its development. The Committee has given us the evidence and the framework. Now we must ensure the government delivers genuine transformation, not more empty promises.

Because quite simply, Autistic people have waited long enough.

Access the Summaries

Download our accessible summaries of the House of Lords Select Committee report “Time to Deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy” from the Aucademy website. Available in standard and easy-read formats.

Reference

Select Committee on the Autism Act 2009. (2025). Time to Deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy (HL Paper 205). House of Lords.

About Aucademy CIC: Aucademy provides Autistic-led support, education, and advocacy. We believe in Autistic culture, community, and the power of lived experience to drive change.

Aucademy Aucademy Guest Autistic blog posts, Uncategorized

Sharing the Canopy

By Thomas Delahunt & Dr Chloe Farahar
For The Poetic Nursing Heart

Aucademy interview special with Tom about the importance of neurodivergent spaces to be released December 2025. When released, Find the interview on our YouTube channel.

Tom provides audio of his written piece, transcript found below

Sharing the Canopy: Tom Delahunt

“When trees grow together, nutrients and water can be optimally divided among them all so that each tree can grow into the best tree it can be.” Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees (2016)

In The Butterfly Farmer, I explored safety as something grown, not built nurtured through relationship rather than prescribed. A cocoon is only safe because the world around it allows it to be. It is a space of quiet transformation, a place of suspension and trust.

Lately, I’ve been thinking again about trees and their canopy, how they share the light within their branches. It recalls Peter Wohlleben’s words, and it reminds me of Chloe’s work, alive with connection, awareness, and care. Beneath the soil, roots meet fungi, fungi meet stone, and stone meets water. There is no hierarchy, only a web, each thread alive to the other’s pulse. And perhaps that is the truest form of equality: the unseen brilliance that binds us. The mycelium beneath mirrors the stars above, weaving light and life in opposite directions. Between them, we learn what it means to belong to both earth and sky.

As I sit with that image, I think of Fred again’s line:  “I found you, the one who cares.”
Listen here

Isn’t that what we’re really doing, in the classroom, in the forest, in the poems and pauses between words? We are finding the ones who care, those who see us not for productivity but for our pulse. To build a canopy where light is shared freely, where safety grows from reciprocity.

Safety, however, does not appear by accident. It must be made. It takes intention, humility, and often a quiet struggle. Hatred breeds hatred, as La Haine reminds us; if we are to stop that cycle, we must plant something tender, radical, and alive. This work – this Middle-earth battle for inclusion – is fought not with swords, but with care, art, and listening. It is a battle of roots, not power.

Soon, Chloe and I will meet in a space I have held as safe a quiet view offered by Lizzie, a place where reflection, connection, and understanding can unfold fully. It is a space to witness tendencies, to explore pulse and presence, to discover light shared in its most tender form. There, with Steve capturing the moment on video, the canopy we share will take shape not only in thought, but in sight, sound, and feeling.

And so, I will ask Chloe: what does the canopy mean to you? How do you find and share light within the academic forest? What sustains your roots when the soil feels thin?

And I wonder, quietly, what spaces will I find next, beneath the canopy of those who care?

Picture of Tom in the HoboPoet Hut, Chloe looking in.
Chloe provides audio of their written piece, transcript found below

Response to Tom: Chloe, Sharing the Canopy

Tom, your canopy metaphor resonates. It reminds me of the difference between two worlds I’ve lived in: the “culture of autism” and Autistic culture. One traumatised and pathologised me. The other helped heal.

The “culture of autism” gave me a vocabulary of deficit. Before diagnosis even, my Autistic behaviours and way of being were assaulted. The pre-diagnosis and then diagnosis labels were etched into my skin with black markers by others.  “Persistent impairment in reciprocal social communication” – a warning label, not a description of my experience. I was communicating. They just weren’t listening in my language.

Images of Chloe as a child.
Image of the diagnostic manuals as to what “autism spectrum disorder” is.

For years, we can exist in limbo. Too Autistic for neurotypical spaces – even when we mask. But also, too alienated by the pathology narrative to seek out other Autistic people. Who wants to gather around shared symptoms? Who finds community in a checklist of what’s “wrong”?

So, we drift. Not just alone, but unseen. Existing in translation, never in our native tongue.

And then we find Autistic space.

Spaces where finger flicking means “anxiety” without explanation. Where someone could see another’s near-invisible rocking and know “meltdown imminent” without needing a performance of distress.

We’re writing the Autistic dictionary. Where they wrote “special interests,” we write “specialisations” or “dedicated interests.” Where they diagnosed “high-functioning,” we recognise “unsupported.” Where they labelled “severe,” we see “distressed Autistic human.”


This isn’t semantics. It’s survival. Language shapes reality. And when they call us “people with autism” – that careful separation – they’re telling us they’d like us better without autism than with. But I am Autistic. Capital A. Like a people. Like a culture. Like something worth capitalising.

Healing from the “culture of autism” doesn’t mean becoming less Autistic. That was their goal, never ours.

It means recognising that the pathology was never in us – it was in the narrative wrapped around us and used against us.

When I’m thriving, I’m still Autistic. When I’m struggling, it’s not my neurology that’s failed – it’s the environment that’s failed to accommodate it.

And what worries non-Autistic researchers and diagnosticians most? Our gathering. Our refusal to see ourselves through their lens anymore.

Beneath that canopy, those marker labels that seeped into me – “cold,” “standoffish,” “unapproachable” – begin to lose their bite. Among fellow Autistic people, those words are shared, understood, and reframed. What was once isolation becomes connection. The canopy is where we scrub away the Sharpie tattoos of stigma, together, even if the residue remains.

Image of Chloe with marker drawn words on their face and body, like “bossy” and “weird”

Every Autistic person who moves from shame to pride weakens their narrative. Every connection we make breaks isolation tactics. Every space we create proves their “treatments” unnecessary.

We “treat” autism by teaching how to be Autistic. Chloe Farahar. SoYoureAutistic.wordpress.com

We’re not asking for acceptance anymore. We’re building our own space.

And in these spaces – these canopies – we don’t just survive. We thrive.

So, the canopy means to me: healing and refuge. It is the place where Autistic identity replaces pathology, where community replaces isolation, and where culture replaces stigma. It is the space where we learn not how to be indistinguishable from others, but how to be unapologetically Autistic, together.

Everybody’s weird, you just have to find your group of weird. Chloe

It’s not the absence of struggle. It’s understanding its source. It’s not fixing what’s “broken.” It’s recognising we never were.

And under this canopy – whether in a classroom, a forest, or an internet forum – we find each other.

A number of images of different neurodivergent people, friends, and fiance of Chloe’s.


Where Chloe has written on Autistic identity, culture, community, and space for Autistic well-being and other related topics:

References (Chloe)

Farahar, C. (2021, June 25). A rose by any other name would smell…of stigma (or, the psychologically important difference between being a “person with autism” or an Autistic person). Retrieved from Unit for Stigma Research, University College London: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/stigma-research/2021/06/25/a-rose-by-any-other-name-would-smellof-stigma-or-the-psychologically-important-difference-between-being-a-person-with-autism-or-an-autistic-person-by-dr-chloe-farahar/

Farahar, C. (2021, May 13). How can we enable neurodivergent academics to thrive? Retrieved from London School of Economics and Political Science: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2021/05/13/how-can-we-enable-neurodivergent-academics-to-thrive/

Farahar, C. (2022). Chapter Nineteen – Autistic identity, culture, community, and space for wellbeing. In D. Milton, & S. Ryan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Autism Studies (1st ed.). Routledge.

Farahar, C. (In Print 2025). The Farahar and Foster Three-Dimensional Autistic Space: Dismantling the ‘autism spectrum’ and centring observer bias in the missing, dismissing, and misdiagnosis of Autistic people. In R. S. Herbert (Ed.), Beyond Autistic stereotypes: New perspectives on identities, gender, and experience. Oxford University Press.

Farahar, C., & Bishopp-Ford, L. (2020). Stigmaphrenia©: Reducing mental health stigma with a script about neurodiversity. In D. Milton (Ed.), The neurodiversity reader: Exploring concepts, lived experience and implications for practice. UK: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd.. T. (2019). Contact sans contact: Investigating a novel experiential intergroup contact approach to reducing mental health stigma. [Doctoral thesis, University of Kent]. Kent Academic Repository. Retrieved from https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/81290

Farahar, C., & Bishopp-Ford, L. (2020). Stigmaphrenia©: Reducing mental health stigma with a script about neurodiversity. In D. Milton (Ed.), The neurodiversity reader: Exploring concepts, lived experience and implications for practice. UK: Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd.

Farahar, C., & Foster, A. (2021). #AutisticsInAcademia. In N. Brown (Ed.), Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education (pp. 197-215). Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

References (Tom)

Carello, J. & Butler, L.D., 2015. Practicing Trauma-Informed Care: A Guide for Teachers and Practitioners. [Publisher if known].

Herman, J.L., 1992. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.

La Haine, 1995. La Haine [Film]. Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. France: Canal+.

Wohlleben, P., 2016. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate. London: William Collins.

Fred again.., 2021. Kyle (I Found You) [Song]. On Actual Life 2 (February 2 – October 15 2021). London: Again.. Ltd. Link

benubaucademy Aucademy collaborations & projects, Guest Autistic blog posts, Uncategorized

Designing Sensory-Friendly Products: An Autistic Entrepreneur’s Journey 📚

Introduction

I’ve been autistic for 35 years—my entire life. For most of those years, I struggled with organisation, routines, and the overwhelming sensory chaos of everyday planning tools. Bright colours, cluttered layouts, flimsy materials that felt wrong in my hands. Nothing worked the way my brain needed it to.

So I built something that did. This is the story of how lived experience became a business, and why designing for autistic minds means designing differently.

The Problem with “Normal” Planners

Walk into any stationery shop, and you’ll find hundreds of planners. Complex layouts with multiple sections fighting for attention. For neurotypical people, these might be inspiring. For many autistic minds, they’re exhausting.

Here’s what I learned the hard way:

Sensory overload is real. Glossy paper that reflects light. Bright colours that demand attention. Thin, flimsy materials that feel insubstantial. These aren’t just preferences—they’re barriers. When a planner feels wrong in your hands or hurts your eyes to look at, you won’t use it. I didn’t.

Visual clutter kills focus. Many planners cram every page with decorative elements, multiple fonts, and competing information. For someone managing executive dysfunction, this creates decision paralysis before you’ve even started planning your day.

One size fits nobody. Neurotypical planners assume everyone thinks, plans, and processes information the same way. They don’t account for time blindness, routine rigidity, or the need for predictable structure.

Building a Business Through Autistic Burnout

Starting ROARGANISE wasn’t a smooth journey. I was navigating my own autistic burnout whilst trying to design products, manage suppliers, and learn e-commerce. There were days when answering a single email felt impossible, let alone running a business.

But burnout taught me something crucial: if I was going to create planning tools, they needed to reduce overwhelm, not add to it.

Every design decision came from lived experience:

  • Black and white colour schemes because my eyes needed rest, not stimulation
  • Soft-touch, waterproof vegan leather because texture matters when you’re holding something every day
  • Thicker paper (170gsm) because flimsy inserts felt temporary and unreliable
  • Clean, simple layouts because my brain needed clarity, not decoration
  • Customisable inserts because rigid systems don’t work for flexible autistic routines

I wasn’t designing for a market. I was designing for me—and for everyone like me who’d been failed by “normal” planners.

Why Sensory Considerations Matter

Sensory needs aren’t luxuries. They’re fundamental to whether a tool gets used or abandoned in a drawer.

When I chose waterproof materials, it wasn’t just about durability. It was about the tactile comfort of smooth, consistent texture. When I selected FSC-certified 170gsm paper, it was because the weight and feel communicated reliability.

Every sensory detail either supports or sabotages executive function. If a planner feels wrong, your brain spends energy managing discomfort instead of managing tasks. That’s not a personal failing—that’s a design failing.

What I’ve Learned About Serving Our Community

Three years into this journey, here’s what I wish I’d known sooner:

1. Autistic people know what they need. The most requested features—dated monthly calendars, food trackers, weight loss planners—came directly from customers. Listening to the community is the only way to truly serve it.

2. “Professional-looking” matters. Many customers use these organisers at work or in medical appointments. They needed something that looked polished and serious, not childish or overly decorative. Autism doesn’t look one way, and our tools shouldn’t either.

3. Planning tools can support diagnosis. I didn’t expect this, but many customers use the organisers to track symptoms, routines, and challenges to share with doctors during ADHD or autism assessments. Clear, structured documentation helps medical professionals see patterns quickly.

4. Sustainability aligns with autistic values. Many autistic people care deeply about environmental impact. Using FSC-certified paper and vegan materials wasn’t just ethical—it resonated with the community’s values.

Final Thoughts

Building ROARGANISE has been the hardest and most meaningful thing I’ve ever done. Every organiser I check before dispatch, every customer email I answer, every design decision I make—it all comes back to that autistic teenager who couldn’t find a planner that worked for her brain.

If you’re autistic and struggling with organisation, know this: it’s not you. It’s the tools. You don’t need to force yourself into systems designed for different brains. You need systems designed for yours.

And if you’re thinking about creating something for the autistic community, start with lived experience. Listen to autistic voices. Design for real needs, not assumptions.

Because when we design for autistic minds, we create tools that actually work.

About the Author: Lisa is an autistic entrepreneur and founder of ROARGANISE, a UK-based business creating sensory-friendly planning systems for neurodivergent individuals. With 35 years of lived autistic experience, she designs products that address executive dysfunction, sensory needs, and the unique challenges of neurodivergent organisation.

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