Autism, Languages, and Cultures

Workshop, 23 March 2026, 12:00-16:00 (EET)
Main building of the University of Helsinki (Unioninkatu 34, 4th floor), Room U4070

Organizers: Grace Joplin Ferreira and Mari Wiklund (University of Helsinki)
Contact: grace.ferreira@helsinki.fi
Workshop description

A central diagnostic and anecdotal feature of autism is difficulty with social communication (Williams et al., 2021)—not only in terms of social expectation, but also through the very structures of the languages and cultures they navigate. These barriers are not intrinsic to autism itself, but often arise from a mismatch between dominant neurotypical norms and autistic modes of communication (Milton, 2012). At the same time, some languages and cultures may offer communicative affordances (or not) —such as pragmatic flexibility or different relational expectations—that support accessibility for autistic people. For instance, in Yoruba culture in Nigeria, younger people are not expected to maintain eye contact with elders (Abubakare, 2022). Those cases reinforce the idea that the dominant view of autism is from the Western world, with little knowledge or awareness from other types of autism understandings across different cultures and languages.

References

  • Abubakare O. (2022). An Unexpected Autistic. Autism in adulthood : challenges and management, 4(4), 268–270.
  • Milton, D., Gurbuz, E., & López, B. (2022). The ‘double empathy problem’: Ten years on. Autism, 26(8), 1901–1903.
  • Tupou, J., Curtis, S., Taare-Smith, D., Glasgow, A., & Waddington, H. (2021). Māori and autism: A scoping review. Autism, 25(7), 1844-1858. (Original work published 2021)
  • Williams, G. L., Wharton, T., & Jagoe, C. (2021). Mutual (Mis)understanding: Reframing Autistic Pragmatic “Impairments” Using Relevance Theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 616664.

 

The workshop will take place in a hybrid format. Those who wish to participate remotely can obtain the access link by contacting the organizers.


PROGRAMME

Opening words (Grace J. Ferreira)


12:00-13:00 Keynote speaker
"The double empathy problem and bridging gaps in mutual understanding"
Prof. Damian Milton (University of Kent, UK), ONLINE

13:00-13:30 Presentation 1 
“Prosodic Strategies in Group Therapy: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Autistic Early Adolescents in Finnish and Swiss French” 
+ "Keeping the Floor in Finnish: Autistic Speakers’ Use of Non-Lexical Turn-Holding Cues" 
Mari Wiklund (University of Helsinki)
Ida-Lotta Myllylä (University of Helsinki)

13:30-14:00 BREAK 

14:00-15:00: Round-table: "How can autistic children adapt their heritage language and culture to navigate in Western culture? A case of Portuguese and Chinese-speaking mothers with autistic children" 
Chair: Grace Joplin Ferreira (University of Helsinki) 
Presenter(s): Patricia Ribeiro (University of Helsinki), Luxin Yu (University of Eastern Finland)

15:00-15:30 Presentation 3 
"Can You Say it Again? Autistic Communication in High and Low Cultural Contexts of Finland, Ukraine, and Japan."
Viktoriya Kuzina, Autistic doctoral researcher  (University of Turku), ONLINE

15:30-16:00 Presentation 4 
"Cultural Gatekeeping in Nerd Spaces: Autism, Fantasy Literature, and Neurodivergent Participation"
Christian Rink, Autistic autism researcher  (University of Helsinki)
The keynote speaker: Damian Milton

Professor and autistic consultant Damian Milton is the Founder of the “Double Empathy Problem”. He coined the theory in 2012, arguing that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic people are mutual misunderstandings, not one-sided deficits.

Milton’s abstract: The theory of the ‘double empathy problem’ suggests that the breakdown in social interaction often found between autistic and non-autistic people can be framed as a disjuncture in social understandings and expectations between two differently disposed social actors. Rather than seeing an individualised ‘social deficit’ in relation to the autistic person, the theory displaces the centrality of normative standards. In bridging the ‘double empathy gap’ the theory highlights the need for humility in interpretation and rapport building over time. It is debated to what extent the double empathy problem can be impacted by embodied and cognitive differences, yet dispositional diversity is also obviously honed by culture and language. This presentation reviews aspects of culture and language use that can potentially help or hinder the bridging of the ‘double empathy gap’, through current relevant research in this area and concludes by opening points for further discussion.