How Research on “Frank” Autism Undermines a Persistent and Harmful Meme With a few friends, I have started working on a project that may be seen as controversial but feels deeply important to those of us who live with the consequences of how autism is constantly redefined, reframed, and repackaged online[ 1 ]. We decided to start small—by analysing the memes that circulate endlessly across social media—and then follow the discussion wherever it leads us. When I looked at a li

Over the past two decades, research on autism has expanded at an extraordinary pace. Studies on prevalence, lived experience, and...

Autism has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent decades. Once thought of as a rare and narrowly defined childhood condition,...