A good autistic life: an autistic-led conceptualization of autistic flourishing through autistic women's-lived experiences

Abstract

Introduction and objective: Interest in developing an understanding of "autistic flourishing" is steadily increasing in research and autistic communities. Flourishing is a multidimensional construct explained somewhat by positive emotion, but mostly by good psychological and social functioning. Autistic people process information and stimuli differently from neurotypical people, so it may be reasonable to assume that their definition of flourishing and the factors that influence it may differ from those of neurotypical people. Exploring flourishing from autistic women's perspectives is essential, as they have been historically overlooked in autism research, despite differing from autistic men in presentation and facing higher mental health risks.

Methods: This autistic-led, partly collective, autoethnographic study was conducted within the context of a broader project exploring the concept of autistic flourishing. Here, we employ a two-phased phenomenological approach, drawing on both autistic and neurotypical frames of analyses. In the first phase, autistic women draw on their lived experiences in a collective autoethnography, including both focus groups and collective writing, to shape the concept of flourishing and its indicators. These insights were further developed by neurotypical authors, who compare to neurotypical experiences and conceptualizations of flourishing.

Results: Two themes and twelve subthemes were identified. The first theme, "Living with a neurodivergent bodymind," presents how autistic women define and experience flourishing. The second theme, "Strategies for autistic flourishing," highlights actions autistic women take to achieve or maintain flourishing.

Discussion and conclusion: Through our autistic-led approach drawing on neurodiverse frames of analysis, our work presents a first initial investigation of autistic flourishing among women. Our findings suggest qualitative differences in autistic derived definitions of flourishing and its indicators compared to those of neurotypicals, emphasizing the importance of developing an autistic-driven understanding of flourishing.

Keywords: autism; autistic-led research; autoethnography; neurodiverse; women.