Perplexing Presentations: Compulsory Neuronormativity and Cognitive Marginalisation in Social Work Practice with Autistic Mothers of Autistic Children

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing interest in exploring the experiences of autistic adults through a lens that adopts emancipatory theorisations of autism. However, despite this changing terrain, autistic people remain a highly subjugated population. Research has begun to theorise a distinctive form of epistemic injustice they encounter in which they are denied access to epistemic resources by a society that valorises cognitively normative ways of being, knowing and existing. An under-explored aspect of this emerging literature relates to the experiences of autistic mothers who are, themselves, much more likely to have autistic children. Evidence suggests that they may be at a substantially increased risk of involuntary social work interventions. This study explores the nature of these experiences, drawing on interviews with autistic mothers as well as my own, lived experiences as an autistic mother. It finds that, through a neuro-normative lens of social work scrutiny, indicators of neuro-divergency in both mothers and children are considered perplexing and assigned malign meanings by those with hermeneutic privilege. This was particularly evident in social work responses to children’s difficulties in attending school, with these difficulties located in mothers rather than in exclusionary, hostile school environments.