Framing Guide: Talking About Autism

How we frame conversations about autism matters. The stories and explanations we choose can either reinforce harmful stereotypes or open up space for dignity and justice.

Below we offer five recommendations to use in framing your communications about autism.

1. Keep lived expertise front and center. In the face of harmful characterizations, prioritizing autistic self-advocates’ lived expertise is one of the most important framing choices we can make. If you are not a self-advocate, the most powerful role you can play is in allyship: supporting, learning from, and amplifying the voices of autistic self-advocacy networks. And reach out to self-advocates about your messaging to make sure we are not inadvertently feeding into harmful narratives about autistic people.
2. Lead with what you know and avoid restating harmful misinformation.  Focus on an affirmative story aligned with your mission, explaining  what people need to know right now. Spend less time playing in the frame opponents have created. Amplifying misinformation, pure fact-checking, and traditional approaches to mythbusting can reinforce deceptive or dangerous narratives. Pivot quickly from problematic statements to the policy issues that are core to your mission and work.
3. Show that systems create unfair, unnecessary challenges for neurodivergent people—not the other way around. When naming difficulties, be explicit that they arise from how our communities, schools, workplaces, and services are designed and not from the existence of autistic people. Instead, describe how systems are vulnerable when they are underfunded, fragmented, or built on outdated assumptions. This reframing shifts the focus away from deficit views of people and toward strengthening structures of support. This means:

   • Say “schools lack resources to support all learners” rather than “autistic students are hard to serve.”
   • Say “programs exclude families because they were not designed to include them” rather than “families struggle because of their child’s disability.”

   This framing puts responsibility on systems and encourages collective solutions.

4. Help people see that another way is possible. Pair critique with positive imagery. Don’t just dwell on the problems. Help people visualize and understand how alternative, more inclusive systems and practices work and what they do. For example, show what fully resourced schools, inclusive extracurricular activities, and accessible community programs look like and what results when they are in place. Help audiences imagine the collective benefits of ensuring that systems are designed so that autistic children have a full and fair chance to participate and contribute. Inclusively.
5. Connect to broader justice movements. Show how ableism intersects with other forms of discrimination and injustice. Situate disability justice alongside racial, gender, economic and other movements for justice. This positions disability justice not as a special or narrow issue but as part of a movement to build a more inclusive society where everyone belongs.

By keeping these framing principles front and center, we can shift the conversation away from stereotypes and ideas of burden and toward respect, justice, inclusion, and a better future.

See also:
Advocating for Students with Disabilities: Strategic Framing Insights