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​Gideon Henner – Language(s) and Autism

​‘Speaking the same language’ is considered a prerequisite for communication and plays a crucial role in creating spaces for marginalized people, such as Autistics; in particular, language use itself can also be considered either inclusionary or exclusionary. Furthermore, language/communication is intimately tied to how both pathologizing and neurodiversity-based theories understand autism. Some autistic individuals and community researchers have even stated autism may constitute a language in its own right.

​This presentation introduces a critique of the pathologisation of autistic language use and communication based on the development of a constructed language (conlang) – an arguably autistic/neurodivergent process, which yields accessible examples and furthermore sidesteps natural languages’ cultural baggage/history, with ableist and colonialist legacy and many preconceptions invisibly in-built into most natural languages. Practical implications for (mis)communication between different neurotypes, but also within the autistic community, will also be addressed.

​Bio

​Gideon (he/him) is a neurodivergent/disabled writer, translator, neurodiversity advocate and researcher from Germany, now living near Edinburgh. Always interested in linguistics, he has worked as a translator for more than 15 years, further following his passion for language(s) – whether real or made-up – through the hobbies of creative writing (under the pen name Gregory Lawrence) and constructed languages (conlangs). Together with a keen interest in critical neurodiversity studies and disability justice, this led him to re-enter academia as a (somewhat) mature student, completing an MA in Medical Humanities at Durham University in 2025. His research focuses on the intersection of neurodiversity and language(s), including literature and linguistics. For further info, please visit https://autistic.conlang.org/ or https://linktr.ee/gregory.lawrence.