Collective Agency in Practice: A Participatory Action Research Project Within the Autism Community

This article presents alternative considerations to modern therapeutic approaches for supporting those in the autism community. The foundations originated from a participatory action research project in which family members of autistic children acted as co-researchers, illuminating their own knowledges. Through this collaborative process, participants challenged professional-client hierarchies as their lived experience was centered. These foundational ideas, embedded in post-structural and narrative practices, were further expanded upon through clinical practice and with greater awareness of the neurodiversity movement and disability justice frameworks. These developments are brought together to articulate considerations for therapeutic practice that resists deficit-based, pathologizing narratives and to spark continued exploration of ways that therapy providers can position themselves to support client agency and action in preferred ways. It is as a call to action for clinicians working with the autism community to critically reconsider modernist notions that risk disempowering the very people they are intended to support.