In recent years, there has been growing criticism of the way in which much autism research has been conducted and, of its epistemological integrity. Knowledge about autism is usually generat-ed from an external position; “expertise and knowledge production are situated in the hands of the, usually, neurotypical professional, clinician and researcher, with autistic subjectivity being marginalised or dismissed.” (Moore, 2020: 42).
Contemporary orthodoxy of theorising autism is predicated on notions of deficit and lack. In both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) and International Classifications of Diseases (ICD-11) autism is characterised as a condition typified by persistent deficits in reciprocal interac-tion and communicative behaviours. This construction of autism as a deficit of language and in-teraction leads to the delegitimization of autistic knowledge. Once positioned as incapable with regards to social communication and interaction, all autistic utterances become “suspect on the basis of… [their] very being” (Yergeau, 2016: 89) and autistic knowledge production based on subjective experience is dismissed as uncredible. Positioned as unknowing, autistic people are denied epistemic agency. Meanwhile, the dominant autism narrative of lack and deficit continues to perpetuate its epistemic violence, “whereby our [autistic people’s] status as knowers, interpret-ers, and providers of information, is unduly diminished or stifled in a way that undermines the agent's agency and dignity” (Chapman & Carel, 2021: 1)
Epistemic injustice is compounded when the category of autism intersects with the category of childhood. Developmentalism positions children as ontologically different from adults and, in edu-cation, they are observed, assessed, and evaluated against pre-determined ‘Ages and Stages’ standards of development (Burman, 1994, 2017; Walkerdine, 1988). In much the same way that neurotypicals claim the authority to construct knowledge about autistic people, so too do adults claim the authority to speak about and for children.
This paper will consider the claims much autism research in the area of education perpetuates epistemic violence against autistic children and it will suggest ways in which we can make an epistemological shift towards acknowledging autistic children as epistemologically agentic, with the “capacity for an individual to produce, transmit and use knowledge” (Catala, Faucher & Poirer, 2021: 9015) It will argue that, in order for autism research to have epistemological integrity it must include autistic voices and lived experiences and move to a collaborative way of doing research with, rather than on autistics.
