Contribution short abstract:

While writing about the experiences of young people in the United States growing up with an autism spectrum diagnosis, their families, and the professionals who work with them, I faced linguistic, conceptual and relational challenges in representing a disorder of social relatedness.

Contribution long abstract:

Writing about the experiences of young people in the United States growing up with an autism spectrum diagnosis, their families, and the professionals who work with them, I faced many decisions. Some were questions of terminology: What language should I use for writing about autism, when terms like "autistic" and "person with autism" are each contested and controversial in their own ways? When is autism a "disorder" and when is it a "condition"? Others were questions of relationship: how do I translate a friendship into a narrative? What is gained and what is lost when a person, through their transformation into text, becomes an example of a phenomenon? Above all, the most difficult question I faced was: how do I represent disorder in social relatedness? How do I depict the struggles and vulnerabilities of youth diagnosed with autism a way that honors both the difficulties of their lives and the creativity and agency they bring to their situations?