I hate linking to YouTube, but IMO this is too good to miss. I just discovered that YouTube has at least three recordings of public presentations by eminent psychology researcher Morton Ann #Gernsbacher, who is also the mother of an autistic son — but about as far from the "autism mom" stereotype as it is possible to get, and a determined and redoubtable advocate for #neurodiversity rights and recognition.

My wife and I watched the following presentation by Gernsbacher, which was given in 2007, but only posted to YouTube three weeks ago — I had the honor of contributing the very first views of this video on YouTube. Apparently the "autism epidemic" myth was already going strong back then. Gernsbacher contributes a masterly takedown of the myth, as well as a devastating indictment of the disgraceful scholarly silence that permitted it to gain traction.

(The sound quality at the beginning of the video, where other speakers introduce Gernsbacher, is terrible; her own actual presentation has much better sound quality. If you'd like to skip to the good part, she appears onscreen around 00:08:25 and begins her presentation around 00:08:40.)

@autistics

Gernsbacher, Morton Ann. A conspicuous absence of scientific leadership: the illusory autism epidemic. YouTube. 2007 [presentation date; published online 2026 Feb 20]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-tRsrduTIE

An observation about "theory of mind deficits" in #autism: what's missing in our relationship to other minds is not a THEORY. It's a set of "click, whirr" automatic shortcut mechanisms for dealing with the social world that neurotypicals use INSTEAD OF the explicit, conscious reasoning that reliance on an actual theory would entail. It's what I've termed the #EnvironmentalYoke. It's what advertising and propaganda exploit, in ways that influence expert Robert #Cialdini has built a career exposing. It's likely a large part of the reason why we're less susceptible to advertising than neurotypicals are.

It would be closer to the truth to say that NEUROTYPICALS lack a theory of mind. They actually do have one, but they mostly don't need to use it; their instinctive reactions, driven by their environmental yoke, mostly render actual theorizing unnecessary. It is WE who must reason explicitly about other minds if we are to understand them at all.

The pernicious and misleading "theory of mind deficit" / #mindblindness terminology is frequently misunderstood by the public to mean that #autistics cannot even understand the CONCEPT of other minds. From that misunderstanding, it's only a short step to regarding autistics as subhuman. The #mindblindness theory is thus a major contributor to bigotry against autistics, as Morton Ann #Gernsbacher has so eloquently pointed out.

I also have personal experience with another problem that #mindblindness theory can cause. I suspected that I might be autistic "or something like that" for DECADES before I finally reached the conclusion that I was, in late 2024. A major reason why it took so long: I, too, misunderstood #mindblindness theory to mean that autistics literally couldn't understand the concept of other minds; I knew that wasn't true of me; I accepted the #mindblindness theory as the best explanation of autism that psychological science could currently offer; and I concluded that I couldn't be autistic!

It's time to bury the "theory of mind deficit" / #mindblindness idea with a stake through its heart. We should avoid using this terminology except to criticize it — and demand that psychology professionals do the same. They can and should find more accurate terminology to express their findings about our neurodivergent relationship with other minds.

@autistics

@autistics Very interesting article I just read, that turns the tables on ableist #autism researchers who claim that anti-ableist moral standards interfere with rigorous scientific research on autism. This article's historical survey suggests that the exact opposite is true. Autism research has a long and disgraceful history of confidently presented but poorly evidenced claims, verging on outright pseudoscience, motivated by ableist prejudice. Anti-ableism may be not just compatible with, but absolutely necessary for, reliable scientific research into autism.

Morton Ann #Gernsbacher is one of the six authors. The article is freely downloadable, in final published form (not just a manuscript), through a link to the publisher's website in its PubMed page:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37743979/