Authors
Grace Joplin Ferreira, Jay Getten and Henri Pesonen.
Conclusions
The nature and directionality of interactions between linguistic skills, extralinguistic abilities, and autistic characteristics are the subjects of current debate (Schroeder et al., 2023). However, little is known about advocating for neurodiversity-affirming practices in language and communications research, although clinical researchers have voiced concerns about ableist language by endorsing the call for neurodiversity in autistic wellbeing globally (Eigsti et al., 2023). The neurodiversity indeed has the challenge of accommodating all sorts of profiles in autism (Hughes, 2021). Furthermore, research in autism language is largely concentrated on English language autistic speakers (British and North American varieties). Despite research conducted on Mandarin (Su and Naigles, 2022), Danish (Brynskov et al. 2017; Finnish and Italian (Gabbatore et al., 2023) we acknowledge the fact that not only Eurocentric and/or hegemonic language varieties but others used by underrepresented populations such as Latino, Indigenous and Black communities (Girolamo et al., 2023) deserve a less deficit-based approach for further research. Nevertheless, all of these barriers should not undermine the motivation to adopt a strengths-based approach, especially considering nonverbal individuals and the ones with intellectual disability, there are much to investigate in these groups as well (Naples et al., 2023). Thus, it is time for autism researchers—particularly, non-autistic researchers—to revisit linguistic evidence in an unbiased manner. We recommend that , a strengths-based approach is crucial for rethinking about autism more holistically (Kapp et al., 2013), not only for the sake of science in attempts to undermine research bias (Woods & Estes, 2023), but also in striving towards a human rights-based approach, since it safeguards wellbeing and boosts confidence and self-awareness of autistic people (Jones et al., 2023). We, therefore, answer the initial question in this report: Where are we? We stand at the very beginning of producing research not reliant substantially upon a deficit-based approach, albeit rather far from enabling narratives from empirical findings that honor and legitimize autistic styles of communicating either among themselves or with non-autistic individuals.