Seeing and inviting participation 
in autistic interactions

Abstract

What does it take to see how autistic people participate in social interactions? And what does it take to support and invite more participation? Western medicine and cognitive science tend to think of autism mainly in terms of social and communicative deficits. But research shows that autistic people can interact with a skill and sophistication that are hard to see when starting from a deficit idea. Research also shows that not only autistic people, but also their non-autistic interaction partners can have difficulties interacting with each other. To do justice to these findings, we need a different approach to autistic interactions—one that helps everyone see, invite, and support better participation. I introduce such an approach, based on the enactive theory of participatory sense-making and supported by insights from indigenous epistemologies. This approach helps counteract the homogenising tendencies of the “global mental health” movement, which attempts to erase rather than recognise difference, and often precludes respectful engagements. Based in the lived experiences of people in their socio-cultural-material and interactive contexts, I put forward an engaged—even engaging—epistemology for understanding how we interact across difference. From this perspective, we see participatory sense-making at work across the scientific, diagnostic, therapeutic, and everyday interactions of autistic and non-autistic people, and how everyone can invite and support more of it.

Mutual (Mis)understanding: Reframing Autistic Pragmatic “Impairments” Using Relevance Theory

“…In this way we resituate the responsibility of breakdowns in understanding on the shoulders of all parties involved, as relevance theory has always intended. This position accords with theories that posit that humans are most successful at inferring the mental and affective states of those others who are most cognitively similar to themselves, and that interactions between autistic and non-autistic people are prime examples of where such conditions are infelicitous (De Jaegher, 2013 , 2020 ; Bolis et al, 2017 ; Fein, 2018 ; Chapman, 2019 ; Conway et al, 2019a , b ).…”

“…Linguistic ethnographic research (such as that by Ochs and Solomon, 2010 ; Sirota, 2010 ; Sterponi and Fasulo, 2010 ) as well some other work on autistic communication (e.g., Bogdashina, 2005 ; Chown, 2012 ; De Jaegher, 2013 , 2020 ; Sterponi and de Kirby, 2016 ; Di Paolo et al, 2018 ), has led the way in taking an intersubjective approach to autism and autistic language use. Autistic participants are approached as situated, interactive agents within their familiar worlds, and from “a phenomenological, rather than a biomedical, point of view” (Solomon and Bagatell, 2010 , p. 2).…”

The ‘double empathy problem’: Ten years on

“…As such, an alternative account of autistic development is needed that is not rooted in notions of a social communication disorder, but of a different embodied way of being that can lead to effects on social interactions and understanding. Work examining what has been called ‘participatory sense-making’ (De Jaegher, 2021) may also be fruitful as this framework not only conceptualises autism at an interactional rather than individual level, but also places an emphasis on the understanding of how the active ‘online’ coordination that occurs between people is at the root of their mutual understanding and becoming.…”

Beyond Disintegration: Transhumanism and Enactivism

“…Ousey and Gallagher, 2007), neurodivergent experiences (e.g. De Jaegher, 2020), musical performance (e.g. Høffding, 2018), assistive technologies (e.g.…”