What specific acceptance would advocates like to see?

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It was recommended that I start a thread on this topic:

Autism advocates often cite acceptance / accommodations as opposed to treating autism as something to be treated or cured, as a means to tackling the serious difficulties faced by many who are autistic. This is often criticized by some as being “hot air” that doesn’t tackle in a tangible rubber meets road way the problems faced with being autistic.

So in defense of autistic advocates, what tangible specific acceptance / accommodations would autistic advocates would like to see outside of NT kindness and job opportunities?

More of what has been started

Some stores and locations are becoming autistic friendly by having areas where less is less sensory stimulation.

I would like more jobs where there is less multitasking and team work. Some jobs do require these but not all. These requirements are there not because they are profitable but because they make the employer comfortable.

I would like more acceptance of the varied types of autism as being autism.

On a related note I would like to see qualified diagnosis be more readily available to all demographics. “Self diagnoses” should be purely a personal reasons choice not a matter of flawed but better then no diagnoses due to lack of availability choice.

On another related note I would like to see more autistic criticism of ABA taken more seriously not dismissed out of hand because the critic has the ability to critique.

Other changes to the world of work:

- A reversal of the "open office" fad. Bring back cubicles and put employees in smaller rooms again, so we can have peace and quiet and fewer visual distractions. Even a lot of NTs find "open offices" difficult to deal with.

- A reversal of the trend towards more and more office parties and required socializing. Or, at least, have designated autistic-friendly teams that don't require them, even if the rest of the company still does require them.

- More programs to enable people to get jobs by proving their skills rather than via the traditional interview process. The latter is extremely difficult for many autistic people to handle.


Well-informed self-diagnosis should be fine in the context of support groups, other autistic community endeavors, and other non-bureaucratic settings. However, bureaucracies doling out scarce resources will inevitably require gatekeepers; I see no way around that. So we definitely need a lot more therapists qualified to diagnose ASD.


I would like to see the ABA establishment to become more open to reforming itself. Given how deeply entrenched an establishment it is, it would probably be easier to reform it than to abolish it.

In my opinion, ABA has one thing going for it: lots of one-on-one attention, which I suspect is something most autistic kids need. Now, if only all that one-on-one attention could be harnessed to do something more productive than things like getting kids to make lots of eye contact. If only at least some of that one-on-one attention could be focused on things like identifying and encouraging the kid's strengths, and on developing the kid's cognitive abilities. As Dr. Stephen Shore has said, you can't build a career on remediated weaknesses.

The unfair interview process has always been an annoyance of mine when job hunting. I can understand imprtance of personality in face to face sales jobs but not most other non customer facing roles.

I guess ABA issue will continue until it can be proved there are better alternatives.

The biggest problem is getting both the ABA establishment and the autism research establishment to take the common complaints about ABA seriously in the first place, and also the need to test a variety of therapeutic methodologies (which could be incorporated into a reformed ABA).