Autism and Thriving: A Critical Review of the Academic Literature

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. two authors of this publication are identified as autistic in the project.

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Dantas, S., Jasper, C., Botha, M., Strachan, K., & Grainger, C. (2025). Autism and Thriving: A Critical Review of the Academic Literature. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0228

Journal or book title
Autism in Adulthood
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Article number
aut.2024.0228
Publication date: 12 Feb 2025 Added to AutiHub: 5 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
5
Publication authors identified as autistic
2 / 5 (40.0%)
  1. Sarah Dantas *
  2. Carol Jasper
  3. Monique Botha *
  4. Khiah Strachan
  5. Catherine Grainger

Abstract

While traditional deficit-based biomedical accounts of autism have viewed autism itself as an obstacle to thriving, recent discussions based on social/relational models of disability argue that this pathologizing rhetoric perpetuates stigma and negative views of autism, which, in turn, create social and environmental challenges that hinder autistic people’s ability to thrive. In that sense, this critical review aimed to analyze how the current academic literature approaches the construct of autistic thriving, using techniques of critical discourse analysis. We found two broad categories that depict a contrast between studies that (1) viewed thriving as a process that looks the same to autistic and non-autistic people alike and perceived autism as a “problem” to be addressed and (2) articles that, alternatively, described autism as a natural difference and attempted to understand autistic thriving, to some extent, from an autistic perspective. We recommend future research that meaningfully and directly engages autistic people in expressing what thriving means to them and what factors facilitate it.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 2 Oct 2026 17:07.

Cited references
38
With a DOI
35
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
2
13 / 38 (34.2%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 38 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
38 / 38 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
1
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
120
From DOI or external metadata
120
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
63 / 120 (52.5%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 57 / 120 (47.5%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
22 / 120 (18.3%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 22 / 63 (34.9%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 16 / 112 (14.3%).
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