Autism Spectrum Disorder and Policing: The Experience and Occupational Impact on Families

PURPOSE: The CDC estimates that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 59 American children (Baio, et al., 2018). The swift increase in ASD diagnosis over the past two decades has created intense interest from researchers and clinicians. Unfortunately, outcomes for adults on the spectrum are shockingly poor across all domains (Levy & Perry, 2011) and services are few and far between (Anderson, Lupfer, & Shattuck, 2018). Participants in a study of community engagement for Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) with ASD identified negative interactions with police and anxiety about future police involvement as barriers. This paper explores the occupational impact of policing on the autism community.

STUDY DESIGN: The data presented was gathered through a series of three ethnographic and narrative phenomenological (Mattingly, 2010) studies of the lived experience of AYA on the autism spectrum. Parents of AYA with ASD have been the primary participants in these studies, with service providers and the AYA themselves being increasingly prioritized over time.

METHOD: Participants in the study engaged in narrative interviews, collective narrative group interviews, and community-based observations. Data was transcribed verbatim and thematically coded by multiple members of the research team. Methods to enhance scientific rigor were incorporated throughout all phases of the research.

RESULTS: Over the course of three studies related to autism in the community mothers, regularly expressed concerns about the safety of their children in the community. Mothers repeatedly shared negative experiences related to police interactions and anxieties about future police interactions. Each of these stories was unprompted, coming as part of an answer to a question about something other than policing. This emergent phenomena sheds light on the occupational impact of social structures and policies. Examples from the data will be presented.

CONCLUSION: Parents of adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum express serious concerns about the safety of their children in the event of an interaction with law enforcement. Current events have illuminated the importance of understanding the lived experience of Black Americans’ interactions with police. This has been a rude awakening for many to hear an experience so different from their own. To truly understand the impact of policing in our communities, we must understand how policing is understood by the members of our community. The concerns of the mothers of neurodiverse AYA provide evidence that anxieties about policing serve as a barrier to community engagement and occupational participation. These anxieties cut across racial and ethnic lines and add to an important phenomenological understanding of policing.

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