Lead Kindly Light: Neurodiversity,Autism,and Good Governance

Introduction

Human neurodivergence and neurodiversity are foundations of human collective action. Socially constructed values derived from human cognition guide the practice of democratic governance (Pierce et al., 2014). Fitting public sector efforts to how humans are makes sense given these basic realities of human experience. Given that public policy and public administration should be tailored to human cognition. The politics of neurodiversity and practices of neuroinclusion present no exception to this general rule. As humans better understand our neurology, the neurodiversity of our species, and the benefits of neuroinclusion, we should also recognize that good governance exists only in public sectors designed in keeping with human beings. Human beings create governments by ourselves and for ourselves. Since governance aims to serve and shape humans, assuming public administration works with capacities or characteristics different than those of humans makes little sense.

Even so, fitting governance to ourselves proves complex. As Deborah Stone observes, one manner by which humans manage such complexity is through creation and competitive use of stories to justify public policy (2022). Stories about human neurology composed to promote selected policy framing and administrative practices abound. Even so, in an analysis of neurolegislation—9that is, laws including the brain, nervous system, or related scientific findings as design features—Francis X. Shen found that “legislators seem increasingly curious about the brain, and the diversity of bill types in the data suggest that brain science has potentially wide-ranging application. . .yet even if the reach of neuroscience in legislatures is wide, it is not deep. . .we do not know if neuroscience is simply window dressing on most policy proposals” (Shen, 2015, p. 498). Although stories exist, how much they are rooted in understanding of discoveries about human neurology and neurodiversity varies.

The emergent state of neuroscience as an area of human knowledge in active interdisciplinarity with other academic disciplines accounts for part of this phenomenon (Fitzgerald & Callard, 2015; Joldersma, 2018). Despite the prevalence of compelling images such as multi-colored illustrations of brain activities, much about neurology remains wholly mysterious (Macdonald et al., 2017; Tardif et al., 2015). Use of emergent neuroscientific findings as foundations for preferred policy stories constitutes one source of neuroethical policy gaps at least as much as does failure to accept newly established findings (Baker & Leonard, 2016; Lilienfeld et al., 2017). Neuroethical policy design gaps exist in the distance between how human neurology actually functions and common assumptions about human neurology and neurodiversity embedded in favored stories that then are used to promote preferred public sector design.

Progress in empirical understanding of human neurology has experienced quantum leaps in recent decades. Although much remains uncertain, much more is known now than ever before in known human experience. Even so, since human beings have been creating laws and policies centered on anticipated human behaviors for millennia, assumptions about the human experience have deep roots involving conjectures about how humans think (Ishay, 2008). Neuroethical policy gaps can form as a result of legislative neglect of findings in psychology and neuroscience trending in opposition to these roots (Baker & Baker, 2021). For example, reliance on eyewitness testimony runs counter to decades worth of scientific findings on human memory. Even though traditionally first-person recounting of events witnessed was considered reliable evidence, scientific research has demonstrated the malleability and fallibility of human memory, particularly of traumatic events (Ibusuki, 2010). Importantly, human memories undergo less than completely understood biochemical changes with each recall, suggesting that memories employed in stressful legal proceedings could be especially likely to diverge from actual historical observations (Tonegawa et al., 2018). Given this, a neuroethical policy gap forms between the stories we tell ourselves about eyewitness testimony and the current state of scientific understanding of the operation of human brains in storing and recalling memories.

Autism politics and policy constitute an intriguing case from which to examine neuroethical policy gaps, their associated narratives, and possible implications for public administration. First, the development of autism-related policy and politics has intensified considerably over the past few decades (Pitney, 2015). Factors such as the perceived rise in the incidence and prevalence of autism, the emergence of neurodiversity advocacy and activism, and more widespread implementation of rights-based disability policy resulted in the formation of large advocacy coalition frameworks publicly storytelling about a once relatively obscure topic (Silberman & Hughes, 2025; Stone, 2022). Second, despite having been squarely in the gaze of both neuroscientists and psychologists for decades, facts central to stories about autism remain contested (Siegal, 2018). In the fall of 2025, this aspect of autism politics was demonstrated when during a eulogy for Charlie Kirk, President Trump stated:

It was Charlie who helped unite MAGA. And do you know what MAHA is? That’s right, Make America Healthy Again. And tomorrow we’re going to have one of the biggest announcements, really medically, I think, in the history of our country. We’re going to be doing it with Bobby and Oz and all of the professionals. I think you’re going to find it to be amazing. I think we found an answer to autism. (September 22, 2025)

The subsequent press conference asserted an established link between maternal use of Tylenol during pregnancy and autism highlighted contestations around stories about the causes of autism. Third, as President Trump’s statement during the same eulogy about autism declared, “we won’t let it happen anymore, and how to get at least somewhat better when you have it so that parents can help their child, their beautiful child. That’s a big one. I’ve been bugging everybody over there” (September 22, 2025). As Trump’s statements demonstrate autism as a way of being and a neurotype entitled to tell distinct stories remains a contested truth (Pennington et al., 2014; Singer, 2017). This contestation is emblematic of those surrounding human neurodivergence and neurodiversity more generally. Examining selected foci of these contestations specific to autism politics sheds light on how the inherent diversity of a leading aspect of the human experience combines with stories humans tell about themselves to affect alignment between public administration and the human public.

Gaps From the Past: Refrigerator Mothers and Vaccine Warriors

Anti-vax efforts aligned with autism are, at least in part, a story of revenge. In the past, hospitalized children often died (Lomax, 1996). One driving force of this outcome was good intentions inspiring focus on maintaining sterile and isolated environments then believed beneficial to the (medical) care of children. The relative novelty of germ theory and the increased professionalism of medicine and science led to widespread practice of refraining from touching or holding children, especially when they were ill (Rossi, 2016). As is now widely known, such practices contributed to the decline in health in children attributed to negative effects of neglect. For example, care of children devoid of physical contact can disrupt hormone regulation processes guided in part through direct contact with other (familiar) human bodies (Gangestad & Grebe, 2017).

During the middle of the 20th century, the scope of harm resulting from the isolation of children from physical contact was beginning to be understood both by healthcare professionals and by members of the general public. Many of the general public in fact had never been as fully convinced of the benefit of such emphatic separation, continuing to practice more bonding touch with their children than was then advised by medical professionals in deference to ongoing familial practice and folk wisdom. This history helped lay the foundation for a neuroethical policy gap between the parenting of children with autism in the community and the impressions of the medical community of the way in which children with autism had been parented. As awareness of autism emerged, so did awareness of the potentially harmful effects of insufficient touch on the development of children. Scientists and physicians observing the behaviors of children with autism interpreted children withdrawing from social interaction as a result of having mothers insufficiently capable of providing affection to their children. Proponents of this theory described autism as a psychological reaction to this rejection. Treatment programs, including programs provided through the public sector, designed under this understanding of autism focused on therapeutic intervention into parenting deficits, including the provision of focused therapy to mothers.

The “refrigerator mother” travesty also mistook the relevant unit of analysis in the contemplation of public gaze on and public regulation of touch. In early psychiatric interpretation of autism contributing to the refrigerator mother perspective, the unit of observation and unit of analysis were blurred and confounded. Freudian assumptions about the ability to discern dynamics from the deep analysis of one person’s recounting of experience, even years or decades after the events occurred and without directly consulting any of the other actors present during the event in question, shaped dominating understandings of how to explain why some children had autism and others did not. After observing that young children with autism appeared less likely to appreciate physical touch and to attempt to engage others in their play, professionals concluded that the reason for this behavior was that the mothers of children with autism never wanted them and withheld affection from them. This resulted in a problem definition centered on mothers as primary caregivers and interventions such as the removal of children and the requirement that mothers undergo therapy aiming to discern the underlying cause of their withholding behaviors.

A core element of misunderstanding fueling portraits of the refrigerator mother was assuming motive from (often short term) observations and across ways of being. When the refrigerator mother perspective dominated interpretations of autism, psychiatrists and other healthcare professionals assumed that the (relatively and perceived) extreme social distancing and resistance to touch reflected the motive that experts hypothetically attributed to themselves or other so-called normal persons. In other words, experts imagined, or in some cases observed, what circumstances could cause them or people presumed like them to exhibit behaviors and then concluded that similar lived experiences must have caused the behavior in autistic children. In public policy about touch (including, to some degree, violent touch) centering the fact of human neurodiversity is essential given both that neurotype is understood through observed responses to sensory input and that neurodiversity is increasingly understood as also involving sensory differences.

As understanding of autism improved, it became clear that frigid parenting did not cause autism. A neuroethical policy gap formed between the programs inspired by stories describing a lack of parental affection skills and the understanding of autism as a neurological difference. As Ari Ne’eman has pointed out, one way to understand the fervor with which some parents of children with autism embraced the subsequent theory that autism resulted from vaccines is to consider the retribution like impulses of placing the blame on the medical community that had so recently placed blame on mothers (Ne’eman, 2013). This blame shifting in accordance with heroes and villains of favored stories exists in the politics of neuroethical policy gaps more generally (Sievert et al., 2021). In managing the dynamic relationships among history, science, and policy development, attending to legacies of harm and the management of misplaced blame over time constitutes an ongoing contestation in the politics of neurodiversity generally.

Furthermore, professional gaze on touch infuses many public policies and falls in the official duties of many public workers. Mitigation of violent touch grew steadily since the 19th century as part of the expansion of human rights. Whereas a broad spectrum of individuals once held expansive authority to commit violent acts against select (and sometimes far from select) others in the name of social, political, cultural, familial, or economic order, as individual rights coalesced in democratic nations, tolerance of violence as a matter of course waned. For example, although in 1946 it was considered at least expected (if not acceptable) that a grieving pharmacist might hit a child to the point of drawing blood (in It’s a Wonderful Life), by the end of the century such a display of violence would have likely have been considered shocking, unless committed as “comedy” or by a character established as a villain. Despite reports of horrific attacks flooding media outlets and social media, casual and daily use of violence by those considered upright members of the community is fading from public memory.

Of course, consensus becomes more complex when the touch is not necessarily physically violent in the sense of resulting in physical injury. Some forms of physical contact, such as unwanted or premature sexual encounters, do not necessarily produce physical injury, but remain violent given the likelihood of long-term psychological harm. Other forms of touch do not readily transcend cultural difference. For example, kissing friends and acquaintances constitutes a far more common practice outside the United States. In such contexts public policy designed to regulate interpersonal touch becomes both tougher to design and less straightforward to implement. The policy stories do not translate well. Especially as public institutions strive to reset themselves after the COVID-19 pandemic while still in the midst of reconsidering touch and boundaries of consent following the #MeToo movement and the manner in which law enforcement officials interact with the general public following the racial reckoning and deportation-related violence of the 2020s, public policy about touch will be reconsidered.

The framing of public problems generally involves dissonance. After all, well-meaning individuals bring divergent perspectives on and hold different understandings of public problems. Absolute consensus of definition of public problems remains elusive so long as governance remains even remotely democratic. Individuals retain the right to choose what stories to believe. Even so, dominant definitions of public problems and restrictions on their possible solutions tend to fall in line with popular and persuasive narratives (Stone, 2022). Solutions are doomed to fail if not rooted in shared reality external to preferred narratives.

Honest Brokers and Issue Stakeholders

Public work involves many actors grouped into differently important (and importantly different) roles. In a democracy, the taxonomy of roles in the public sector includes at least the general categories of administrator, activist, advocate, analyst, bureaucrat, evaluator, front-line service provider, lobbyist, politician and scholar. Each policy subsystem can be expected to include individuals actively playing each of these roles and often forming advocacy coalition frameworks in order to pursue policy goals (Leifield, 2013; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Furthermore, each role involves not only distinct responsibilities but also different professional cultures, ethics, and values. One continuum on which each of these roles arch typically falls spans from honest brokers to special interest activists. Career public administrators are anticipated to be situated closer to the honest broker end of this continuum, with the caveat of having some anticipated interest in the professional reputation, continuance, and priorities of the agency they represent. In other words, public administrators are expected to receive and use information as objectively as possible and, generally speaking, from scientific ways of knowing. As such, public administrators are expected to practice and display so-called “neutral competence.” Even so, as has become increasingly understood at least since the advent of postmodernist perspectives, neutrality is inherently relative, generally affected by social inequities and privileges, and it must be continually practiced in the absence of potential for perfection. Examining the politics of and relating to autism during the past century sheds light on how negotiating this continuum plays into contemporary public service.

Quality in politics and public administration benefits from faithful performance of specific roles by individuals in accordance with the ethos expected from representatives of that component of a particular policy subsystem. An activist, for example, is expected to play the role of ardent expressor of a select moral sentiment, usually through more or less unilateral problem definition. An administrator, on the other hand, serves the systems of democratic governance best through expert management of the implementation of a formulated public policy designed to address a specific public challenge within a selected public policy subsystem. Professional behavior in these two roles differently serve) the public good and serve it differently. Individuals enter work in a particular area of the public sector often at least in part because they have some baseline interest in the focal area. Practitioners also tend to develop career competence in performance of the ethos of their particular roles over time as a result of conformance to norms.

Contemporary humans play multiple roles in their daily lives. Especially since the advent of social media, it is increasingly straightforward to observe public officials beyond their official roles in the public sector and to attempt to engage public officials outside of their official roles and work hours. Contemporary public officials are generally not asked to commit their entire lives to public service identities. This reality represents a relatively novel invention tied to the professionalization of the public service that has developed since the 19th century. Although cultural memory of these developments has faded considerably, public servants across a variety of policy subsystems once were expected to fully sacrifice personal lives when entering public service. For example, when early modern police forces were first established under the leadership of home secretary Sir Robert Peer with the creation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 (the inspiration for the nickname of “Bobbies” for subsequent law enforcement professionals in the region), officers were expected to forgo marriage and children in order to serve (Emsley, 2009). Similarly, female teachers in many parts of the United States were required to remain unmarried (and by default) childless (Cavanagh, 2006) until well into the 20th century. In contemporary democracies public service no longer requires this level of sacrifice even for the armed services. Even so, in most public professions, those who enter public service are expected to be willing to accept lower salaries than would be common in the private sector for employees with similar training, experiences, and duties. Professional public service generally only limits behaviors during the actual performance of duties, not in the lives beyond service (excluding otherwise illegal activity and some sexual relationships). This necessarily complicates both performance and comprehension of balance between acting as an advocate and as an honest broker. Even so, so long as the question aims for separation of distinct roles, personal feelings, politics, and scientific findings, potential for sufficient objectivity relative to specific positions in public sector work exists.

In autism politics in the 20th and early 21st centuries, neuroethical policy gaps formed as a result of both inherent complexities of contemporary identity, and, importantly, movement away from the separation of politics and science. Part of this dynamic has been attributed to the personalities and goals of prominent actors following the Second World War. Hans Asperger, for example, has been retroactively connected to more involvement in the deaths of children with so-called lower functioning autism (and other disabilities) in recent years than was presented to be the case in the decades following the War. During the final decades of the 20th century, Asperger at times was portrayed as a hero who protected the lives of children with autism in Vienna during the Third Reich. More recent analysis and interpretation of his actions, however, have suggested that he was responsible for the deaths of children with disabilities. Concern about his role even contributed to the removal of his name from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with the fifth revision released in 2013 (Silberman & Hughes, 2015). Notably Dr. Asperger’s descendants have disputed this reconsideration of his actions. Whichever narrative is more accurate, Asperger’s example is an argument for (rather than against) a blurring between politics, preferences, and scientific objectivity.

Similarly, Bruno Bettelheim exaggerated his training and connections to Sigmund Freud in seeking to gain acceptance into professional and scientific communities in the United States. Bettelheim’s misbegotten credentials supported his efforts to build a professional reputation, allowing him to popularize the refrigerator mother theory of autism. In both cases, the scientists left the territory of honest brokers of information expected of scientists and moved toward the world of policy entrepreneurs and issue framers. Failure to maintain the integrity of the role of scientist can particularly plague scientists who achieve soaring eminence in their fields, leading all too frequently to a dismissal of the evolution of science beyond the discoveries for which they are renowned. When such scientists also become involved in politics, confusion and misdirection abound. Maintaining distinction between the roles of scientist and politician strengthens and improves social, scientific, and political systems even while being replete with paradox (Stone, 2024).

Autism politics was not distinctive in this respect. Although always an elusive prospect, William Churchill (and others) have advised that the role of the expert was to be on tap rather than on top (Stillman, 2009). Coordination between the issue and the content experts involves communication about what is and what should be. Science serves to provide both unbiased descriptions of historical and current conditions and to develop technology, making what should be more possible to manifest in the real world. Issue stakeholders work toward the actualization of moral agendas using the tools provided by science. Policy subsystems operate best when specific roles are transparently maintained. This best practice is difficult to realize (Stone, 2024). Working toward better understandings of role paradoxes, improved practices for effectively communicating between actors, and tending to mechanisms by which blurring between roles can be convincingly monitored and corrected is important

Inconvenient Youth

Historically, consideration of people with autism (and, to a lesser degree, autistics) historically near-exclusively on children. To some extent, the focus on children in the politics of autism became sufficiently absolute so as to incur elements of single-issue activism around the notion of the protection of children. Locating autism in children echoed care agenda frameworks common in the construction of disability policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Baker, 2011; Scotch, 2001). At the samne time, the focus on children also complicates the single-issue activism because of the inherent complexity of children and public policy. Raising children is a transcendent and pervasive human experience including highly divergent approaches, core beliefs, and firmly ensconced traditions. Defining autism (or disability more generally) as an issue of childhood builds walls around a paradigm above and beyond the framework of a single-issue narrative.

In the original creation of the diagnoses of what now understood as autism, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual placed autism in the category of childhood schizophrenia, evidently failing to imagine grown individuals with autism even in the absence of any suggestion that the diagnosis carried any constraints on expected life span. Individuals with autism and autistic individuals were, by definition, children and dependent. As a result, public policy and the administration of public programs focused first and to some extent exclusively on the creation of policies and programs for children. A neuroethical policy gap formed between the creation of public policy focusing on children as the target population and the demographic reality that at any moment in time the majority of individuals with autism and autistic people are not minors.

Autism exists in adulthood. A first (and contestable) response to the existence of this neuroethical policy gap was the construction of autism as tantamount to life-long childhood. Being human takes practice. Those with autism and developmental disabilities became understood as in need of more prolonged periods of practice than deemed necessary for other neurotypes. Routine institutionalization of autistic individuals and individuals with autism lasting long into the 20th century reflected the belief in an ongoing state responsibility to parent when autism was present. Developmental delay directly communicated a delay in transition to the independence of adulthood, too often translated without real question into permanent deferment. A person with autism or autistic, and others with diagnoses categorized as involving developmental delays became understood as bereft of the possibility of exiting childhood, despite aging of physical bodies.

Contemporary neuroscience reveals a far more complicated reality of human development. Individual development varies enormously. Furthermore, some proportion of the population never attains sufficient command over major life functions so as to adequately function in society with the idealized absence of assistance from others. Even so, absolute independence, especially as understood archtypically in the United States, proves elusive for most people and, often, is less than desirable once fully considered. For many, the complete lifespan of human beings involves some period at the end of life where a need for assistance with major life functions reemerges. In addition, construction of independence and the quest for adult identity vary across cultural contexts, rendering both framings and tensions experienced by autistics in some nations, a qualitatively different concern in others (Cascio, 2020). As a result of such diversities (and intersectionality) of conceptions of adulthood, as research into autism expanded beyond the founders, neuroethical policy gaps formed between the conception of differences of ways of being built into policy assumptions and the emergent brain science surrounding neurological differences.

Failure of imagination about the existence of adults with autism and autistic adults slowed the development of public policies specific to adult concerns. The gap between observed reality and assumed immaturity came into stark relief in the United States as more and more individuals grew up and attended school entirely after the adoption of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Although implementation of this policy providing for the free and appropriate education of individuals with disabilities in the least restrictive environment remains inconsistent, growing up with the expectation of inclusion in the public education system as well as the actual receipt of this education made for a generation of adults substantially less tolerant of the notion that disability implies life-long dependency similar to persistent childhood (Baker, 2011; Ne’emen, 2013; Silberman & Hughes, 2015).

Toward the end of the 20th century, young adults increasingly organized around the principles of autistic identity. Public policy focused on disability in adults had existed for decades, with early efforts such as those providing pensions for soldiers injured in combat. These policies tended to focus on providing (often substandard) care to people presumed incapable of providing for themselves. Young adults raised with the expectation of having their rights respected in schools found the care framework largely unacceptable, especially when access to the still-needed care aspects were contingent on dependency (Scotch, 2001). For example, in the context of autism-related politics and policies, young adults able to collect care or support available through the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income face income and work restrictions to stay eligible for the programs. Especially because qualifying for programs can be an arduous process, some who qualify for and might otherwise be able to work chose to limit their economic engagement in order to maintain access to needed services.

Autistic youth and young adults began to form identity-based organizations whose missions included the goal of reshaping the policy infrastructures for disability in adults. In the context of autism politics, formation of organizations such as ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) in 2006 built on earlier work dominated by those with physical differences involving efforts to refocus programs on inclusion rather than dependency. Carrying forward the “Nothing About Us Without Us” theme from earlier decades, ASAN at times found itself at odds with organizations formed and led by parents (Silberman, 2015). Members of such parent-driven organizations often were accustomed to speaking for their “children,” or, when including more or less tokenistic involvement of youth in their decision making and operations, to offer relatively little resistance to the policies and administration of organizations. Youth who grew up included in their schools and had sometimes even more voice in their educational programming than typical students as a result of instances of higher quality practice of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) protocols of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, rejected lesser statuses within organizations. In one notable circumstance in 2009, Autism Speaks, a leading actor in the autism policy subsystem founded by parents in 2005, began an “I am” advertising campaign in which an advertising spot stated “I am Autism . . . I know where you live . . . I live there too . . . I work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer and diabetes combined . . . And if you are happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails” (Wallis, 2009, np). ASAN and other activists and advocates objected to the framing of autism as inherently tragic.

A decade later, offense tied to this characterization remained, even as Autism Speaks made at times awkward efforts to bridge the gaps between somewhat contradictory world views and roles in the policy subsystem. In 2020, autistic advocates continued to find fault with Autism Speaks’s approach to autism politics, particularly around issues of neurodiversity and in their own limited practices of neuroinclusion. As Sara Luterman wrote: “to those outside the autism world, this may seem like an insignificant semantic difference. But it represents how Autism Speaks has had a monopoly on how people discussed autism and how it made a concerted effort to dismiss and disregard the opinions of autistic adults who have had the temerity to speak for themselves” (2020, np). Corrections soon were added to the article, reflecting the tension in play. According to an editorial note, “this article has been updated to reflect several corrections. Autism Speaks did not ’assert’ autism destroys parents’ lives. Its tool kit for parents ‘does not say grieving is an inevitable’ consequence of their child’s diagnosis. A paragraph describing the organization’s spending on research to find an autism cure was not correct and has been removed” (Luterman, 2020, np). Youth movements are often characterized as inconvenient in the sense of taking extreme or irreverent positions. Frequently, this also can be notably uncomfortable for long-term stakeholders. Furthermore, like many activists, the points made can be less specifically accurate than would be considered reasonable for long term collaboration among diverse stakeholders within a given policy subsystem. Even so, as the case of autism politics demonstrates, when delays in reframing an issue toward increasing social justice drag along for decades, the inconvenience of youth becomes a vital tool for displacement of privilege. A key role of the public administrator involves fair (and largely dispassionate) recovery of practice once the reframing has been effectively incorporated into policy design.

Concluding Thoughts

The title of this article quotes a hymn written in 1833 with a first stanza that concludes, “I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me” (Newan, 1833). ¹ Although found in a message about faith, both working scientists and issue stakeholders struggle with time and progress in the manner these words reflect. Scientists and issue stakeholders work toward the potential for a better world. Turning attention to the light of transformational scientific discovery or social progress made manifest through perfected moral sentiment in public law almost always involves long-term acceptance of slow-deliberate effort toward a destination not witnessed by those who begin a journey. The formation of neuroethical policy gaps as exemplified in the autism politics of the twentieth and early 21st centuries raises the question of how to take next steps in public policy and interpretation of neuroscience, especially in moments where glimpses of the distant scene come into view. Incremental policymaking dominates most public policy making and defines periods in which sustained, supported progress can be made. Although the need for and attraction of punctuations in policy equilibriums exist, periods of normal policy operations also may allow for pubc administration innovation, including the testing of better practices.

As stated at the beginning of this article, realities of human neurodiversity and neuroinclusion matter, particularly as new findings disrupt our favorite stories about ourselves. They are also material. In recognizing neuroethical policy gaps, public administration can better aim for the clarification of democratic ideals in practice. In the context of the autism policy subsystem, worthy focus on ideals suffers if underlying assumptions about the brain misdescribe human neurology. Although realizing the goal of clarification will necessarily take some time, good practice of public administration requires that policy terms cannot fall into the category of “it meant something different every time she heard it” (Proehl, 2016, p. 86). With practice, we prevail. With patience and understanding, democratic intentions materialize.