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By Cristina Busu
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We are abandoning autistic people while congratulating ourselves for accepting them.
After years of campaigns, commemorative events, and public messaging, autism is more widely recognized than ever.
Yet recognition has not ensured that autistic people can find suitable employment, receive appropriate education, or access support that reflects their individual needs.
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Awareness has become a comfortable substitute for action.
This failure affects people worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that one in 127 people had autism in 2021. But that number includes people with very different needs.
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Some can live independently, while others need care throughout their lives. Using one broad description for all of them does not create real understanding. It leaves too many people without the support they need.
Society now knows autism is a spectrum, but it often pays attention only to the people whose experiences fit comfortably into the public conversation.
Autistic people who can describe their needs have rightly demanded dignity and acceptance. However, people with profound disabilities may be unable to speak for themselves, live independently, or participate in advocacy.
Their families are frequently left to fight for services while public discussions focus on the most visible voices.
The Figures
At the other end of the spectrum, awareness has not removed the barriers facing autistic adults who want to work.
Some have university degrees and valuable technical abilities but struggle with eye contact, conversational conventions, or traditional interviews.
In the UK, 34 percent of working-age disabled people with autism were in employment in 2024–25, compared with 82 percent of non-disabled people, according to House of Commons Library analysis of Department for Work and Pensions data.
That gap exposes the emptiness of corporate promises about neurodiversity. Employers cannot claim to accept autistic people while rejecting candidates because they avoid eye contact, communicate differently, or struggle with traditional interviews.
That is not acceptance. It is exclusion with better branding.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
The way autism is diagnosed has become part of the problem. Research published on the NIH’s PubMed Central shows that several previously separate diagnoses, including Asperger’s disorder, are under one broad term: autism spectrum disorder.
The goal may have been to show that autism takes many forms. Instead, it created a label so wide that it can describe someone who needs occasional help and someone who requires lifelong care.
When one diagnosis can mean almost anything, it often tells families, teachers, and employers far too little.
Bringing those diagnoses together helped establish autism as a broad spectrum and expanded public understanding. But the classification has completed its awareness-building purpose.
It is no longer precise enough for the decisions now being made in classrooms, clinics, and insurance reviews.
Broad Classification, Different Needs
Even people placed at the same support level may have very different needs. One may speak clearly but struggle with everyday tasks. Another may have difficulty communicating and need constant supervision.
Yet teachers, therapists, and insurers are often expected to make decisions based on the same broad classification. When the label provides so little detail, people can easily receive too little support or lose services before they are ready.
The debate over terminology has become a distraction from the people who need help. We can disagree about which labels are acceptable, but we cannot ignore the clear difference between someone who needs limited workplace support and someone who requires lifelong care.
Pretending those needs are the same does not promote equality. It makes it easier for schools, insurers, and public agencies to offer general solutions that fail everyone, especially those who cannot speak for themselves.
A Multidimensional Profile
I am not arguing that we should force autistic people to mask harmless differences or revive every former diagnosis. I am arguing that a classification system must tell us more than the existence of autism.
Equal dignity does not mean pretending everyone requires the same intervention. Refusing to distinguish between needs is not respectful. It is negligent.
The American Psychiatric Association should use the next DSM revision to replace the three broad support levels with a mandatory, multidimensional profile.
Every assessment should separately record communication, intellectual and language functioning, adaptive living abilities, sensory and behavioral needs, safety risks, and required support intensity.
Schools, insurers, and public agencies should base services on that documented profile instead of a general label.
Employers must also replace socially loaded interviews with skills-based assessments and report how many autistic applicants are hired, retained, and promoted.
Otherwise, neurodiversity commitments remain public relations exercises rather than evidence of inclusion.
We can continue applauding awareness campaigns while autistic people remain unsupported, unemployed, or invisible. Or we can measure progress by whether their lives materially improve.
Awareness that produces no action is not progress. It is permission to look away.
Cristina Busu is the founder of Help Hope Solutions, a provider of behavioral and developmental services for children, including autistic children. Her work focuses on communication, social development, and individualized strategies that help children build greater independence.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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