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 the past two decades, our societies have become more fluent in the language of mental health. Public campaigns encourage people to...