Bottema-Beutel Kristen, Kapp Steven K, Sasson Noah, Gernsbacher Morton Ann, Natri Heini, Botha Monique
Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College, Boston, MA, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Sep 8;14:1244451. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1244451. eCollection 2023.
It was recently argued that autism researchers committed to rejecting ableist frameworks in their research may sacrifice "scientifically accurate" conceptualizations of autism. In this perspective piece, we argue that: (a) anti-ableism vs. scientific accuracy is a false dichotomy, (b) there is no ideology-free science that has claim to scientific accuracy, and (c) autism science has a history of false leads in part because of unexamined ableist ideologies that undergird researcher framings and interpretations of evidence. To illustrate our claims, we discuss several avenues of autism research that were promoted as scientific advances, but were eventually debunked or shown to have much less explanatory value than initially proposed. These research programs have involved claims about autism etiology, the nature of autism and autistic characteristics, and autism intervention. Common to these false leads have been ableist assumptions about autism that inform researcher perspectives. Negative impacts of this work have been mitigated in some areas of autism research, but these perspectives continue to exert influence on the lives of autistic people, including the availability of services, discourses about autism, and sociocultural conceptualizations of autistic people. Examining these false leads may help current researchers better understand how ableism may negatively influence their areas of inquiry. We close with a positive argument that promoting anti-ableism can be done in tandem with increasing scientific accuracy.
最近有人认为，致力于在研究中摒弃能力主义框架的自闭症研究人员可能会牺牲对自闭症“科学准确”的概念化。在这篇观点文章中，我们认为：（a）反能力主义与科学准确性是一种错误的二分法，（b）不存在声称具有科学准确性的无意识形态的科学，（c）自闭症科学之所以有误导性的历史，部分原因是支撑研究人员对证据的构建和解释的未被审视的能力主义意识形态。为了说明我们的观点，我们讨论了自闭症研究的几个途径，这些途径曾被视为科学进步，但最终被揭穿，或者被证明其解释价值远低于最初提出的价值。这些研究项目涉及关于自闭症病因、自闭症的本质和自闭症特征以及自闭症干预的主张。这些误导性观点的共同点是研究人员对自闭症的能力主义假设。这项工作的负面影响在自闭症研究的某些领域已得到缓解，但这些观点继续对自闭症患者的生活产生影响，包括服务的可获得性、关于自闭症的话语以及对自闭症患者的社会文化概念化。审视这些误导性观点可能有助于当前的研究人员更好地理解能力主义如何可能对他们的研究领域产生负面影响。我们以一个积极的观点作为结尾，即促进反能力主义可以与提高科学准确性同步进行。
