I received two private messages in response to my recent blog post, Autism, Murder and the Death Penalty: Two Japanese Cases. One was negative—How dare you write about it?!—while the other was positive: Thank you. It is very important to talk about real cases, even when they are… Interestingly, both messages eventually asked the same question: Is the nursing profession suitable for autistic people? Here is what I can say about it. Autistic nurses: is this the “wrong” job? App

Can autism ever reduce criminal responsibility for murder? It is an uncomfortable question, but one that courts occasionally have to answer. A recent paper by Kashiwagi and Hirabayashi (2026)[1] examines two extraordinary Japanese cases in which healthcare professionals with ASD or autistic traits committed multiple homicides. Although the defendants shared certain autistic characteristics, the courts reached dramatically different conclusions: one was sentenced to death, whi

Diagnosis, Comorbidity, and the Question of What Makes Us Who We Are Before discussing autistic identity, it is necessary to clarify several terms that will be used throughout this article. Identity refers to the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, social roles, and affiliations that define a person or a group. It may include characteristics such as nationality, sex, profession, values, political or religious beliefs, and membership in particular communities. For example,

The slogan “Nothing about us without us” has become one of the defining principles of modern disability advocacy. At its core, it expresses an important moral idea: disabled people should not be excluded from decisions that affect their lives. In many contexts, this principle is both reasonable and necessary. But autism raises difficult questions that the slogan alone cannot answer. Who exactly is the “us” without whom nothing can be decided? Does it refer primarily to autist

In recent years, the public image of autism has changed dramatically. Media coverage, social media advocacy, and popular culture increasingly portray autistic people as articulate, independent, academically successful, or socially unconventional in appealing ways. Autism is often framed primarily as a natural human variation – a different way to think and experience the world. For some autistic people, this representation is undoubtedly valid. But it is far from the whole pic

This post is in response to a discussion on Facebook, 05.05.2026 Having trouble shopping with an autistic youngster? I understand this problem only too well: from the time my son was a toddler, it was impossible to take him shopping with me. Anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) could trigger his meltdown. Sometimes I could identify the cause of it (even if it took days after the event) – constantly playing the ‘video’ of the latest ‘catastrophe’ in my head until I found a more o

A Mother Before a Pioneer Dr Lorna Wing did not set out to revolutionise autism research. Like many transformative figures in science, her journey began not in theory, but in lived experience. When her daughter Susie was born in 1956 and later diagnosed with severe autism at the age of three, the landscape was desolate—clinically, socially, and emotionally. Despite years of medical training, Lorna and her husband John, both psychiatrists, knew almost nothing about autism when

Pressure on Diagnostic Services In recent years, adult autism diagnostic services have come under exceptional pressure. Referral rates have surged, far outpacing clinical capacity, and exposing systemic limitations in provision. The consequences are stark. An NHS-funded diagnostic service in Oxfordshire, for example, recently closed its waiting list after estimating that it could take until 2043 to process its backlog of over 2,000 patients. For individuals referred before 20

In recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of autism diagnosis in adolescence and adulthood . Waiting lists for assessment have grown rapidly. In England, for example, the average waiting time for an autism diagnosis reached 300 days , substantially exceeding the 91-day target recommended by NICE (Fagg & Woodhead 2023). The rising demand for assessment reflects a broader shift in public awareness and clinical practice. Public discussion often pre