Advocate

Learn how autism traits manifest differently across diverse populations—Autistic girls, transgender women, non-binary people, as well as ethnic and racial minorities have historically been missed or misdiagnosed as a result of poor diagnostic criteria and uneducated diagnosticians.

Be flexible when analyzing autistic traits—Just because the girl in front of you doesn’t present stereotypical autistic traits doesn’t mean they aren’t manifesting in another way or that she isn’t masking or camouflaging them (Cook et al., 2024).

Use diagnostic tools to assess for social camouflaging—Use tools such as the Camouflaging of Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) for adults and the Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Conditions (Q-ASC) for children (Hull et al., 2019; Simcoe et al., 2018).

Check your biases—Remember that just because someone isn’t a little white boy obsessed with trains, they can’t be autistic. Not to diminish the needs of this population, but they have historically been fairly assessed. Remember what you’ve learned so far, and apply it when you have suspicions that someone might be autistic.

Understand the Neurodiversity Paradigm—If you are going to work with the neurodivergent population in any way—including autism, ADHD, OCD, and other neurological differences—educate yourself on the neurodiversity paradigm. This is the idea that neurodivergent people don’t see themselves as disorders, but rather as people whose brains work just a little bit differently (Chapman & Botha, 2023; Pellicano & Houting, 2022).