Autistic youth as active agents for societal change

Autistic young people’s voices have been largely absent in research about autistic childhoods. In this chapter, we provide a brief exploration of how autistic young people are viewed through a pathologising lens and how this view has shaped a deficit-based approach to research conducted on-and-about them, building a negative narrative about young autistic lives. The rights of the child as ‘active social agents’ in their own ‘social worlds’ have been enshrined in UK legislation. Drawing from interviews and artwork from a yearlong emancipatory Autistic Activists research study, we give insight into autistic childhoods from an insider perspective. We show how research can empower autistic young people to become active agents for societal change.