Disability Rights

The disability rights perspective within the Autistic community is represented in the neurodiversity movement, which promotes social acceptance of neurological difference as part of the broad landscape of human diversity and seeks to bring about a world in which Autistic people enjoy the same access, rights, and opportunities as all other citizens. Acceptance of difference is essential to understanding, accepting, and benefiting from the contributions of everyone in our society, thus allowing all people to live up to their potential.

ASAN regularly works with other disability rights organizations to advance public policy initiatives that focus on improving quality of life and ensuring full access in society. In accordance with the social model of disability, we recognize that disability need not be a tragedy or a misfortune and that barriers to full participation in society often arise not from physical or mental differences, but from cultural attitudes that stigmatize certain types of people as less worthy of inclusion than others. Thus, a person becomes disabled not as an inevitable result of his or her condition, but rather because society has not accommodated his or her needs sufficiently to enable equal participation in the community. Such barriers to inclusion can and should be dealt with through the political process, in the same way that civil rights advocates have worked to break down prejudiced assumptions and exclusionary practices that harm other minority groups.

Of course, there are real challenges associated with autism and other neurological differences. The social model draws a distinction between the underlying condition, which exists regardless of cultural attitudes, and the disability, which consists of everything that goes into society’s representation of the condition. In advocating recognition of the civil rights and dignity of Autistics and others with disabilities, we are not overlooking the existence of such challenges; rather, we are seeking to create a world in which all people can benefit from whatever supports, services, therapies, educational tools, and assistive technologies may be necessary to empower them to participate fully in society, with respect and self-determination as the guiding principles.