
doi: 10.1145/3569891
The Internet has, for several decades, played a critical role in autistic self-advocacy and community building. This semi-autoethnographic, interpretivist study turns to #ActuallyAutistic Twitter to examine autistic concerns about autism research, how these concerns differ from those of autism researchers, and how autistics interact with autism research and researchers. I find that #ActuallyAutistic Twitter discourses align with the neurodiversity paradigm, while dominant autism discourses in the academy align with the medical model of disability. Though both orientations towards autism research sometimes share research priorities, they represent fundamentally irreconcilable approaches to these priorities and autism, more broadly. I explore how autistics on Twitter interact with non-autistic researchers and how the tenor of these interactions varies according to which research paradigm a particular researcher subscribes. I conclude with a discussion of how HCI researchers interested in autism can operationalize these findings by approaching their work through the framework of crip technoscience.
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 23 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
