Ralph James Savarese’s scientific contributions

... 23,38,39 Autistic adults, in contrast, have long challenged the viewpoint that casts autism as the barrier to relationships, rejecting the damaging stereotypes of not wanting companionship 40,41 or not feeling empathy. [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] They are supported by researchers who have demonstrated heightened affective empathy and a desire for social relationships in autistic people, [55][56][57][58][59][60][61] drawing attention to repeated interpersonal trauma as the primary factor for some autistic adults' hesitancy on entering new relationships. [62][63][64] Epistemic injustice, 65 diagnostic overshadowing, 66 and the double empathy problem 67 may be at the root of this discrepancy between viewpoints. ...

Reference:

Show Me the Real You: Enhanced Expression of Rogerian Conditions in Therapeutic Relationship Building with Autistic Adults

... For autistic adults, interventions are already increasingly modelled on neurodiversity claims of acceptance of difference and accommodation of the environment, such as generating adapted workplaces and sensitizing colleagues about autism (Lai et al., 2020). With some notable exceptions (Fletcher-Watson, 2018;Leadbitter et al., 2021;Schuck et al., 2022), applications of the neurodiversity paradigm are, however, still largely unexplored terrain when it comes to young children and the sphere of early detection and intervention (Savarese, 2010). ...

Reference:

The Earlier, the Better? An In-Depth Interview Study on the Ethics of Early Detection with Parents of Children at an Elevated Likelihood for Autism

... The main critique against the neurodiversity paradigm is that it expresses the interests and needs only of the so-called high-functioning autistics and not of the low-functioning ones, as well as that it ignores the suffering described by some autistics themselves. A number of scholars, however, have taken more flexible, combined approaches that subvert the hard-and-fast oppositions between the biodeterministic and the social constructivist concepts, between the need for therapy and respect for difference, while bearing in mind the mixing of normative models at the everyday level, including in parental care (Savarese and Savarese, 2010;Cascio, 2012;Kapp et al., 2013;Hart, 2014). ...

Reference:

‘Nothing About You Without Us!’ The Social Psychiatry Project in Socialist Bulgaria