Journal
JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY
Volume 63, Issue 4, Pages 381-396Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13534
Keywords
Autism; ethics; medical model; neurodiversity; social model of disability
Categories
Funding
- Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT190100077]
- Macquarie University Research Fellowship
- Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC)
- Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Program
- Australian Research Council [FT190100077] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This review focuses on the challenges that the conventional medical paradigm of child psychiatry faces, emphasizing on deficits, individual rather than broader context, and a narrow perspective. It also explores how elements of the neurodiversity paradigm can potentially overcome the limitations of the medical model in autism research.
Since its initial description, the concept of autism has been firmly rooted within the conventional medical paradigm of child psychiatry. Increasingly, there have been calls from the autistic community and, more recently, nonautistic researchers, to rethink the way in which autism science is framed and conducted. Neurodiversity, where autism is seen as one form of variation within a diversity of minds, has been proposed as a potential alternative paradigm. In this review, we concentrate on three major challenges to the conventional medical paradigm - an overfocus on deficits, an emphasis on the individual as opposed to their broader context and a narrowness of perspective - each of which necessarily constrains what we can know about autism and how we are able to know it. We then outline the ways in which fundamental elements of the neurodiversity paradigm can potentially help researchers respond to the medical model's limitations. We conclude by considering the implications of a shift towards the neurodiversity paradigm for autism science.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available