Families of neurodiverse children, the neurodiverse community, and clinicians involved in autism assessments and supports have been advocating for, and practising, a move away from medicalised, disorder-based language towards neuroaffirmative, strength-based language.
The importance of this shift is highlighted by the autistic community, who feel their experience of the world is not a ‘disorder’ or set of ‘symptoms’, but rather a different neurological predisposition. While diagnostic manuals such as the DSM-5 have yet to fully adopt neuroaffirmative terminology, clinicians involved in diagnosing autism have begun adopting strength-based approaches to assessment, report writing, and designing supports for neurodiverse clients.
“Moving away from a deficit-based medical approach to child autism assessment (identification), this comprehensive and detailed handbook covers the most up to date research and best practice. Created to encourage and empower clinicians to make a paradigm shift to a more neurodiversity-affirmative approach, this book acknowledges the challenges of working within a system that is inherently deficit based and provides practice points and clinical reflections on how to embed neurodiversity-affirmative principles in their individual practice.” (Hartman et al. 2025)
This paves the way for more inclusive and accessible language and healthcare delivery – which is crucial in today’s diverse society.
Resources to guide neuroaffirmative assessment in the Irish context include the recently published books below:

The Adult Autism Assessment Handbook by Davida Hartman, Tara O’Donnell-Killen, Jessica K. Doyle, Dr Maeve Kavanagh, Dr Anna Day, and Dr Juliana Azevedo.

The Neurodiversity Affirmative Child Autism Assessment Handbook, Davida Hartman, Maeve Kavanagh, Tara O’Donnell-Killen, Anna Day, Jessica K. Doyle