Expert on Your Own Child, Expert on Your Own World—Reinventing Autism Expertise(s)

Abstract

What does it mean to be an expert on autism? And how do you become one? This chapter explores these questions in the context of ethnographic research conducted in an autism association created and run by parents with the help of a speech therapist, that provides services for families of autistic children in a low-income neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on a discussion of the experiences of parents in the association of navigating their local sociocultural worlds with their autistic children, the chapter argues for a context-sensitive model of autism expertise. Rather than becoming experts simply by virtue of acquiring credentialed scientific knowledge about autism, these parents learn to convey knowledge about their sociocultural worlds to their autistic child. The process involves learning about the particular cognitive styles of their autistic children, while not losing sight of the possibilities and limitations afforded by the sociocultural worlds they inhabit.