Autismus und herausfordernde Umgebungen: Auf dem Weg zu einer stärkenorientierten Ethik des Flourishing

Dominant discourses on autism are often based on deficit-oriented models that characterize autistic people primarily as impaired or as deviating from a development understood as normative. Such perspectives not only fail to recognise the diverse potentials, neurocognitive differences and individual coping strategies of autistic people, but at the same time ignore the profound influences of social, institutional and material conditions on the realities of their lives.
The article takes up existing neurodiversity-oriented approaches and focuses on the concept of autistic flourishing as an ethically and socially relevant reference concept. Autism is not understood as a disorder, but as an expression of human diversity.
From an interdisciplinary perspective, it is analysed how individual scope for action is embedded in social, institutional and material constellations and is co-shaped by them. In this context, flourishing is understood as a context-sensitive and relational process that is geared towards environmental resonance, inclusive participation and the facilitation of self-determined well-being.
The focus is on a critical examination of the structural conditions of central social fields such as education, health care, urban development and social policy. The goal is not to adapt autistic lifestyles to neurotypical standards, but to design environments in such a way that they enable autonomy, dignity and diverse forms of being.