Controversies

Autism research is full of live disputes — about definitions, causes, labels, and treatments. This section doesn’t pretend those disputes are settled. Each page lays out what is actually contested, who the serious parties are, and where the evidence currently points.

• What Is Autism? — the definition has never stopped moving.
• Where Autism Comes From — heritability, and the “epidemic” that isn’t.
• One Diagnosis, Two Doorways — DSM-5 vs. IDEA.
• The Limits of the “Spectrum” — functioning labels and masking.
• The Limits of High Functioning Autism — what “high-functioning” hides.

In the queue

The ABA debate. Critics charge that applied behavior analysis is ableist; practitioners have answered at length. An analysis of one such answer — Arthur, S. M., Linnehan, A. M., Leaf, J. B., et al. (2023), “Concerns about ableism in applied behavior analysis: An evaluation and recommendations” — is in progress. The goal is the same as everywhere on this site: figure out who has the burden of proof and whether they have met it.