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Argument, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Practitioners who self identified argue support should not wait for a diagnosis
In short
At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Sydney, the panel’s facilitator, Dr Judy Tang, admitted feeling territorial about diagnosis. Neurodivergent practitioners on the panel explained why they had started from self identification.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
Dr Judy Tang, who facilitated the first Sydney panel at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, put her own professional reflex on the table as she asked the panel about self identification. As a health professional, she told the panel, it almost felt as though she was a bit territorial about diagnosis, as though only she could identify someone as autistic: “only I can do the diagnosing and it’s like well actually we’re shifting away from that.” She raised it after observing that the internet had made it far easier for people to self identify, a word she paused over even as she used it.
Researchers had been recording the same shift. A 2023 scoping review by Overton and colleagues, published in the Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, began from the observation that adults are increasingly self identifying as autistic, and reported problems in being referred for an autism diagnostic assessment.
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Sources the story draws on
- Barriers to consistent, timely and best practice assessment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and support services for people with ADHD, Chapter 1: Introduction and background (opens in a new tab), Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Parliament of Australia
- Barriers to consistent, timely and best practice assessment of ADHD, Chapter 3: Barriers to assessment and diagnosis (opens in a new tab), Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Parliament of Australia
- Understanding the self-identification of Autism in Adults: a scoping review (opens in a new tab), Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Springer); repository copy, University of Suffolk
- National Autism Strategy 2025 to 2031 (opens in a new tab), Australian Government (health.gov.au publication page)
- Release of the National Autism Strategy 2025 to 2031 (opens in a new tab), Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care
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