The starting point for many research articles on the topic of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) includes the following phrase: “ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder…” The author agrees that ASD is neurodevelopmental, and calls into question the word “disorder”, proposing that rather than being a disorder, autism and other neurodivergent traits are best understood as a way of utilizing the computational strengths of the human brain to adapt to the environments in which human beings live, learn, work and play. Building on research from the field of computational neuroscience, the author provides an alternative understanding of what it means to be autistic and how to best support people on the autism spectrum to successfully adapt to the world in which we all live.
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