Speech-Language Pathologist's Role in Understanding and Promoting Self-Advocacy in Autistic Adults

Purpose: This tutorial introduces speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to strategies that promote and support self-advocacy among autistic college students. The discussion for this tutorial is grounded within the framework of the social model of disability and the need for addressing environmental barriers to communication and self-advocacy. Method: We provide a self-advocacy framework to guide SLPs in developing programs for autistic adults. We describe factors that impact self-advocacy in autistic college students and the role of university-based SLPs and speech-language pathology graduate students in program implementation. Scenarios and examples are included to aid SLPs in implementing the recommendations. Conclusions: Self-advocacy is a predictor of retention, adaptation, and graduation of autistic postsecondary students. Prior research on autistic self-advocacy is minimal, and guidance for SLPs on promoting and supporting self-advocacy of their autistic clients is limited. SLPs play a very important role as they can increase understanding and appreciation for autistic social communication differences among nonautistic peers and professors and address autistic stigma through meaningful engagement of autistic individuals in planning and program development.