Autonomously Autistic

Exposing the Locus of Autistic Pathology

  • Anna Williams PhD Candidate, University of Florida
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v7i2.423

Abstract

The locus of pathology exists not in the autistic person, but in the interaction between a hostile environment and the subjugated autistic. It is essential for parents, practitioners, educators, and autistic people themselves to ask the crucial question—  Is the autistic a machine, or an organism? Are we active agents in our own embodied experience, or are we a locus of behavior? It is not with defiance, but autonomy, that I declare as an autistic person— I am not a manifestation of stimuli and response. I am agential. I am Autonomously Autistic.

Author Biography

Anna Williams, PhD Candidate, University of Florida

Anna Williams is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Florida’s Human Centered Computing program in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Department. Their research investigates how the implicit attitudes toward disability in the field of computer science shape the nature of assistive technology and the ethics of technology applied to intervention.

Published
2018-07-05
Issue
Vol 7 No 2 (2018)
Section
Articles