An Experience Sensitive Approach to Care With and for Autistic Children and Young People in Clinical Services

Abstract

Many support schemes in current autism clinical services for children and young people are based on notions of neuro-normativity with a behavioral emphasis. Such neuro-disorder approaches gradually undermine a person, restrain authentic self-expression, and fail to address the impact of a hostile world on autistic well-being. Furthermore, such approaches obscure attention from a fundamental challenge to conceptualize an alternative humanistic informed framework of care for staff working with diagnosed or undiagnosed autistic children and young people. In this article, we offer an appreciation of the lifeworld-led model of care by Todres et al. We discuss how mental health practitioners can adopt an experience-sensitive framework of health care by incorporating the eight dimensions of care into practice. This neuroinclusive approach creates a culture of respect, honors the sovereignty of the person, prioritizes personalization of care based on collaborative decision-making, and enables practitioners to support well-being from an existential, humanistic view, grounded in acceptance of autistic diversity of being. Without a fundamental shift toward such neurodivergence-affirming support with practitioners being willing to transform their understanding, real progress cannot happen to prevent poor mental health outcomes for autistic people across the lifespan. This shift is needed to change practice across research, clinical, and educational contexts.