The neurodiversity movement challenges us to rethink autism through the lens of human diversity, valuing diversity in neurobiologic development as we would value it in gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
The physician who offers telemedicine services to out-of-state patients is subject to the laws of his or her home state and the remote patient’s state, so it is crucial to understand both.
In treating children with autism, physicians should focus on involving parents in a shared decision making partnership and seeking safe, evidence-based, and medically and cost-effective treatments.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):310-317. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.ecas3-1504.
Although now discredited, the idea that mothers’ behavior is responsible for autism lives on in the social pressure that mothers feel to save their autistic children, at a cost to both the self-blaming parents and people with autism.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):353-358. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.mhst1-1504.