Models of helping and coping with autism

Much controversy surrounds the meaning of autism and how to help autistic people and their families cope with related challenges. This analysis compares four classic attribution models of moral responsibility for the causes of and solutions to problems, using for each model an example from how parents or autistic people have viewed and addressed autism. Accordingly, under the new application of the moral model, parents have been wrongly blamed for causing autism, isolating and sometimes breaking apart families. Parents led a paradigm shift to the medical model, under which neither parents nor autistic people are at fault for autism’s emergence, and they must seek help from medical authorities to treat it using practices based in dehumanisation and dependency. Autistic people feel ashamed and must submit to authorities for intervention under the enlightenment model yet resist or dislike stigmatising and controlling help. Many autistics have turned to the neurodiversity movement, under which disability mainly lies in society’s oppression and they must self-advocate to improve their lives, consistent with the compensatory model. Neurodiversity offers the strongest approach to improve quality of life because it empowers autistic people to seek support on their own terms.