Inclusion Must Be Global, Decolonized, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse, and Anti‐Normative

Srinivasan, H. B., Chan, T., Kim, S. Y., Obeid, R., Jones, D. R., Botha, M., Giwa Onaiwu, M., Tan, D. W., Waisman, T., Kapp, S. K., Kassous, I. Z., Mathaga, J., & Gillespie-Lynch, K. (2025). Inclusion Must Be Global, Decolonized, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse, and Anti‐Normative. Journal of Social Issues, 81(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.70045

Publication date: 1 Dec 2025 Added to AutiHub: 5 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
13
Publication authors identified as autistic
5 / 13 (38.5%)

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this concluding commentary for our special issue, Neurodiversity‐Affirming Intersectional Approaches that Target Public Policy: Moving the Focus from Changing Individuals to Changing Systems of Power, we seek to ameliorate the pervasive omission of nonspeaking Autistic people and those outside the Global North from research, services, and policy. In our special issue, we tried to nurture the often‐neglected intersectional roots of the neurodiversity movement by amplifying perspectives of multiply marginalized Neurodivergent people. However, nonspeaking people remain underrepresented in our special issue. Therefore, we assembled people with diverse connections to the autism constellation, including nonspeaking and minimally speaking people and people from the Global South, to write this concluding piece. Together, we generated neurodiversity‐affirming policies and organized them according to these themes arising from articles in our special issue: justice, representation, and systems change. To foster justice, we call for full access to individualized, holistic communication supports, cross‐disability alliances, and decolonial approaches. To improve representation, we recommend melding Universal Design, Open Scholarship, and indigenous frameworks to support Neurodivergent representation in all aspects of research and advocacy, particularly leadership. To promote systems change, we call for accessible multimodal resources and valid assessments. Across all themes we stress tech equity, transparency, and community oversight. Accessible and detailed summaries of our policy recommendations that administrators, editors, clinicians, educators, researchers, and advocates can adopt now to make inclusion the default are provided in tables (please share widely). For the most marginalized, inclusion will not come from incremental adjustments but from radical solutions and systemic overhauls.

Bibliography cited by this reference

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Bibliography inclusion overview

These indicators describe the cited bibliography imported for this publication. Cited-reference metrics use the cited-reference total as denominator. Cited-author metrics state whether they use all cited-author occurrences or only occurrences linked to authors already integrated in the AutiHub database. They use cached links between cited authors and authors integrated in the AutiHub database. Last computed: 16 Aug 2026 11:30.

Cited references
109
Total cited references integrated for this publication.
Cited references with an identified autistic author
26 / 109 (23.9%)
Cited author occurrences identified as autistic
42 / 274 (15.3%)
Among occurrences linked to AutiHub author records: 42 / 120 (35.0%). Distinct cited authors identified as autistic: 25 / 239 (10.5%).
Cited author occurrences linked to AutiHub author records
120 / 274 (43.8%)
Distinct linked cited authors: 88 / 239 (36.8%)
Linked cited-author occurrences not identified as autistic
78 / 120 (65.0%)
Among linked cited-author occurrences only. Across all cited-author occurrences: 78 / 274 (28.5%). Distinct linked cited authors not identified as autistic: 63 / 88 (71.6%).
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