Hello, and welcome back to The Autistic Writer. One of the most fiercely debated autism-related subjects is that of whether autism is a disability. Even a quick glance at social media reveals quick-fire disagreements that often disregard explanation or nuance, and just give an opinion: Of course it’s a disability, or No, it’s not a disability. Today, I’m going to try to unpick this knot.
My Story
Shortly after receiving my formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (formerly Asperger Syndrome), I found myself in a difficult workplace situation. Like many people who discover their autism later in life (I was aged 54 when I received my diagnosis), my mental health was vulnerable, and I was struggling to make sense of things. Although I’m normally quite an independent person, at this point I felt like I was floundering. So I began to look for potential support for my workplace situation. I found an autism charity near me and got in touch by email, speculatively, explaining my situation, and asking if they could help.
I received a friendly reply, and an assurance that they could indeed help. A support worker from that organisation got in touch, and in one of our early conversations, this person said, regarding my fears about my workplace situation, “They can’t do that to you. As a disabled person, you’re protected by the Equality Act.” Inside, I was thinking, What? Am I disabled? The thought had never crossed my mind before, and it’s safe to say I’d built up a lot of internalised ableism, without ever – until that point – understanding what disability was.
The Disagreements
Before writing this article, I did a Google search for social media discussions on the subject, and pulled out one at random. Instagram user trevorcarrol posted this:
This post garnered a lot of comments, but I just want to share a few that are a microcosm of how this debate often goes on social media:
One interesting thing about this thread is that the original post by trevorcarrol is edging towards a highly relevant observation, and while some commenters on the thread understood this, the sample of comments above illustrates how the nuance is not always acknowledged. Here is another classic disagreement from X/Twitter:
In this thread, again, the original poster edges toward a nuanced approach, but the reply uses an interesting (and arguably justifiable) opinion to reject the view of autism as a disability completely.
Is there anything that can resolve this common disagreement? My feeling is that rather than resolving the disagreement, we can actually make it go away by acknowledging a question that all too often isn’t asked in the debates: What do you mean by disability?
The Definition of Disability
The online Cambridge Dictionary defines disability as this:
“An illness, injury, or condition that makes it difficult for someone to do some things that other people do, and that is usually permanent or lasts for a long time.”
This seems straightforward, but also a little vague. I live in the United Kingdom, and there is UK legislation on disability, in the form of the Equality Act 2010. The act describes disability thus:
You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.
What ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ mean
‘substantial’ is more than minor or trivial, for example it takes much longer than it usually would to complete a daily task like getting dressed
‘long-term’ means 12 months or more, for example a breathing condition that develops as a result of a lung infection
While disability rights legislation has been transformative for the lives of many disabled people in the UK, it is perhaps unfortunate that the above text from the gov.uk guidance on disability under the Equality Act 2010 gives such limited examples of what constitutes disability.
The Equality Act 2010 does not specifically mention autism as a disability, but it is widely accepted that autism does fall under this legislation. However, the definition of disability in the Equality Act 2010 raises an interesting point. The term impairments is viewed by some in the autistic community as an example of the deficit-based language around autism that may encourage discrimination and prejudice.
Nevertheless, many people in the autistic community, including many of those who advocate the neurodiversity paradigm, accept that life as an autistic person in a world which seems more suited to non-autistic people is very difficult. This raises the question of whether those difficulties are intrinsic to the autistic person (actual impairments) or extrinsic (resulting from the physical, sensory, and social environment). The idea that disability can come from sources extrinsic to the disabled person is called the Social Model of Disability.
Social Model of Disability
The social model of disability has its roots in the disability rights activism of the 1960s and 1970s. The concept is that disability is created by social barriers. These barriers can be behavioural, such as social prejudices, physical, such as buildings being inaccessible to wheelchair users, or systemic, such as an absence of reasonable adjustments in workplaces. The social model is an alternative to the medical model, which views disability as part of the person.
This difference in the way of thinking about disability is just part of the nuance around whether autism is a disability.
Different Approaches to Disability
Identifying as Disabled
Some autistic people choose to identify as disabled; some do not. Some autistic people identify as disabled only in certain contexts, for example, in educational or workplace settings. Choosing not to identify as disabled will not bar a person from the protections of the Equality Act 2010 if the status of that person falls within the parameters of the Act.
Legally Disabled
As far as the law in the UK is concerned, a person is considered to be disabled if their status falls within the parameters of the Equality Act 2010, regardless of the opinions of that person, or of other people.
I discussed in a previous article the many anecdotes from people who have been verbally abused for using disabled parking spaces because they were not using a wheelchair. It is an unfortunate fact that many people are still badly informed as to what constitutes a disability, and assume that disability rights and protections only apply to wheelchair users.
One of the benefits of the Equality Act 2010 is the requirement for educational and workplace establishments to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. The UK equality legislation is considerably stronger than that of many other states because it doesn’t just prohibit discrimination; it actually imposes positive requirements. However, not everyone lives in the UK, and the situation is different around the world. The scope of legal recognition of disability, and the level to which that recognition is enforced, varies widely across different nations.
Please note: The following segment, highlighted in blue, is an edit from the original version of this article. The original version did not accurately describe a complex and contentious point.
disability as Personal Characteristic
The legislation in a given nation does not create or remove a given characteristic in an individual which may, under certain circumstances, be considered a disability.
If an individual has a characteristic which may, in various circumstances, be subject to questions over whether it counts as a disability, that trait does not cease to exist in a nation that does not legally recognise it as a disability.
Furthermore, the trait does not cease to exist if other people choose to argue it is not a disability. And the trait does not cease to exist if the individual themselves chooses not to identify as disabled (although it would be disrespectful to refer to a person as disabled if you knew they had chosen not to identify as such).
This leaves us in a murky area of definitions and, if anything, underlines the point that conceptions and definitions of disability are context-dependent.
Social Recognition of Disability
Whether we like it or not, there is often a common or prevailing opinion about whether a person should be considered disabled or not that does not match formal or legal definitions. Clearly, there are, unfortunately, many people who believe a person is only disabled if they have to use a wheelchair, or if they need 24/7 assistance to feed and bathe, etc. However, the people who hold these views are not the arbiters of whether a person is disabled or not. They are simply deploying a restricted view of disability. Often, this restricted view is the result of simple ignorance, and here in the UK there has been significant, if incomplete, progress on correcting this through disability awareness training in workplaces, etc.
When someone voices an opinion that some condition, whether it be autism or something else, is absolutely not a disability, it is often a good idea to bear in mind that the person may just be badly informed as to what constitutes a disability, either in law or in a simple objective assessment of ability to function in a given environment.
If someone tells you that autism is not a disability, and you are in a place where autism is legally recognised as a disability, the best response might not be a simple Yes it is, but perhaps, It is currently recognised in law as a disability, and you can check that.
Context
All the above approaches to disability are context-dependent. It is in the lack of consideration of context that the disagreements are based. There is no single answer to the question Is autism a disability, because the very definition of disability relies on context. That context can be legal, social or personal, and it can vary by location.
When debates about autism and disability become heated – whether on social media, around the dinner table, or in the local pub – the participants often believe they are answering the same question when, in fact, they are answering different questions. The debate becomes much easier to understand once we begin with a simple question: What do you mean by disability?
Do you mean, do autistic people identify as disabled? The answer is: sometimes.
Do you mean, are autistic people granted legal protection due to disability? The answer is: it depends, but in the UK yes.
Do you mean, are autistic people intrinsically disabled regardless of how they identify, or legal status? The answer is: it depends on which model of disability you are referencing, along with the general context.
If you are going to engage in debate over anything, it’s always a good idea to understand the terms of the debate.
That’s all for this time. Take care.
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