Individual experiences in Autism: Tailored therapy, personal-driven research, Theory of Monotropism, Spectrum10K project, and effective treatments.
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“Once you’ve met one Autistic person, you’ve met one Autistic person.”

Lived experiences of Autism are vastly different for every individual. No two autistic individuals are exactly the same, and no two autistic traits are the same either. It is vital that therapy is tailored to the needs of each individual that reaches out for help. The role of the therapist isn’t to ‘fix things’, but rather to lean in, listen, enable people to experience their emotions in a safe environment and support them towards their own solutions.

It has been incredible recently to see a shift towards research and studies that are driven by autobiographical data from the Autistic community. This shift is one of the reasons the Theory of Monotropism seems to be gaining increasing attention recently. It has also driven the revaluation of the prominent Spectrum10K project – currently on hold, the research team at Cambridge University, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of California Los Angeles are working towards wider consultation and co-design with autistic people and their families.

Individuals living with Autism are the only ones with the personal experience to effectively guide the focus of modern research, enable it to evolve in the most relevant direction and produce results that move us towards more effective treatments and wider understanding and acceptance.