Autism as Disorder, Difference, and Identity: The Structural Incoherence of a Hybrid Framework

Kennard, Monty and Street-Mattox, Catrin (2026) Autism as Disorder, Difference, and Identity: The Structural Incoherence of a Hybrid Framework. Wrexham Nexus: Journal of Research, 1 (1). pp. 1-26. ISSN ISSN 2977-6333 (Print) ISSN 2977-6341(Online)

Text WURO_752 Kennard - Conceptualising Autism.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (313kB)

Abstract

Background: Contemporary understandings of autism combine elements of disorder, disability, difference, and identity. In the UK, autism is diagnosed using clinical tools, recognised in law as a disability, celebrated publicly as a difference, and explicitly rejected as a disease. This hybrid framing is presented as inclusive, but generates tensions in diagnosis, access to support, and public discourse. Aim: This article examines how this hybrid framing emerged and how the simultaneous use of medical, legal, social, and identity-based logics produces structural incoherence in how autism is organised and supported. Method: A conceptual review synthesising diagnostic manuals, legal and policy frameworks, and sociocultural literatures, with reference to other areas of psychiatry and disability. Key findings: The analysis shows that hybridframing operates as a layered compromise across clinical, legal, and cultural domains, allowing institutions to alternate between disorder, disability, difference, and identity as needed, preserving diagnostic authority while appearing inclusive. Diagnosis functions less as a neutral description and more as a rationing device, even as self-diagnosis and identity-based claims gain prominence. Celebratory strengths-based narratives and spectrum rhetoric tend to centre more independent autistic people, while those with higher support needs remain marginalised, medicalised, or structurally invisible. Implications: Addressing these contradictions requires structural honesty about what autism is taken to be, what counts as harm, and what outcomes systems aim to pursue. Without such clarity, autism policy and practice risk remaining rhetorically progressive but structurally unaccountable, sustaining inequitable provision across the spectrum of need.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Autism, neurodiversity, disability, diagnosis, identity, policy, conceptual
Divisions:	Social and Life Sciences
Depositing User:	Emma Harrison
Date Deposited:	27 May 2026 08:30
Last Modified:	27 May 2026 08:30
URI:	https://wrexham.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/18448

Actions (login required)

Edit Item