The neurodiversity movement has fundamentally challenged how behavior analysts conceptualize autism and related conditions. Where ABA has historically framed autism through a deficit-remediation lens, the neurodiversity paradigm reframes autistic traits as natural variations in human neurology deserving of respect and accommodation rather than elimination.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via New York State Association for Behavior Analysis
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Autism research and practice have traditionally focused on remediating purported individual "deficits". The neurodiversity movement contests this conceptualization, reframing "the autisms" as minority identities to respect and highlighting the need for systems changes. Recognizing the context-dependent and relational nature of both strengths and challenges associated with autism, the neurodiversity movement calls for full societal inclusion for neurodivergent people. Although the neurodiversity movement is contributing to an ongoing paradigm shift in autism research and practice, both neurodiversity-lite practices (e.g., inauthentic use of neurodiversity terminology to maximize profits) and openly regressive and stigmatizing rhetoric (e.g., that frames autism as an epidemic that needs a cure) are increasingly apparent. To use our work to promote authentic justice, or full representation in, equitable access to, and participation in all aspects of society, for neurodivergent people, we must learn how to define and apply the principles of the neurodiversity movement to improve our practices, theories, and research. One key neurodiversity-affirmative strategy for improving autism research is participatory research with Autistic collaborators, which seeks to improve the social validity and overall quality of autism research by using democratic decision-making processes to create opportunities for autistic collaborators to shape research goals and processes. We are collectively at a crossroads where we can self-reflect and learn from community members how to earn their trust or align ourselves with regressive trends that threaten to dismantle the progress the neurodiversity movement has made and move us backwards. Therefore, we should attend carefully to increasing concerns that have been raised about the quality, trustworthiness, and generalizability of autism research more generally and ABA research in particular. Notable efforts are underway to learn from critiques how to improve ABA practices and research. These efforts align with a broader effort to address harms caused by autism research and practice by collectively developing clear neurodiversity-affirmative principles that can be iteratively used to improve how we support autistic people. By learning from community members and building bridges across disciplines, we can move forward together.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1.5 | Ethics |
| COA | 1.5 | — |
Dr. Noor Syed (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Applied Behavior Analysis, as well as the founding Director of the Center for Autism Advocacy: Research, Education, and Supports (CAARES) with SUNY Empire State University. She supported the launch of and coordinated a Masters of Science in ABA with SUNY Empire, in which a core tenet is affirming, responsive practice. Dr. Syed has also been named the Turben Director of Autism Advocacy with CAARES, whose primary initiative is to help SUNY Empire become a fully inclusive and supportive college for those who identify as neurodiverse through a multi-tiered system of support framework. The university was designated an Autistic Supportive™ institution in 2022. In addition, Dr. Syed is the director of Anderson Center International, an organization dedicated to providing training in evidenced-based strategies for scholars from under-resourced areas globally, and is President of the New York State Association for Behavior Analysis. She is an Adjunct Doctoral Advisor in ABA with Endicott College, and is a certified general and special education teacher. Dr. Syed serves on the ABA Ethics Hotline and on the Scientific Council with the Organization for Autism Research. She received her undergraduate degree in behavior analysis under Dr. Raymond G. Romanczyk in the Institute of Child Development at Binghamton University and completed her PhD in ABA with Dr. R. Douglas Greer at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Syed has consulted with and supported autism centres around the world, including in Uganda, India, and Saudi Arabia, and has spoken about autism with the United Nations. She is a Trustee with the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and co-leads their Distinguished Scholars program. Noor is Neurodiverse and came to this work because of her beloved cousin who was born with significant intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
280 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
244 research articles with practitioner takeaways
You earn CEUs from a dozen different places. Upload any certificate — from here, your employer, conferences, wherever — and always know exactly where you stand. Learning, Ethics, Supervision, all handled.
No credit card required. Cancel anytime.
All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.