Interview with Dr.Price

American psychologist, author, and neurodiversity advocate Dr. Devon Price published the book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity in 2022, detailing the autistic experience, breaking harmful perceptions of autism, and exploring the social norm of masking. Dr. Price himself is transgender and autistic, and used their personal experiences while working through their publications. NeuroGuidance interviewed Dr. Price with Mission San Jose High School students in April in an effort to expand the school community’s understanding of neurodivergence.

Especially prominent in his work, and something that stood out among the spoken topics of the interview were the origins of autism diagnoses, and how they came from places of exclusion and discrimination: “[In] the mid 20th century, into like, kind of the World War Two era and into the 50s, and you have these psychiatrists who were kind of first defining what does autism look like, what are the symptoms that really define autism, and the people doing that research were people like Hans Asperger, who worked with the Nazi regime, so obviously there was a lot of kind of horrific biases there.” These biases can be seen continuing today with political administrations placing negative connotations on autism and other neurodivergent conditions. The “Make America Healthy Again” campaign run by R.F.K Jr. continues to perpetuate these age-old ideologies. 

As these ideologies make a comeback, and institutions are still farther behind on promoting this same understanding: Dr. Price encourages people to approach institutionalized information with healthy skepticism: “I think it's [my experiences] left me kind of jaded sometimes, so I just really can't trust these big institutions, medical schools, universities, etc. — which can be scary, but I think it's also good to know what you're up against, right? And to know that they really don't know what they're talking about. We could do so much better than this, which I think is kind of an empowering thing to realize.” 

However, Dr. Price proposes that there is a way to truly define neurodiversity in a way that gets rid of these biases while still progressing science. “We shouldn't try to cure autism, we shouldn't try to get rid of whole populations on the planet that are just different from other people when most of our struggle comes from being different … As long as we're kind of aligned on the goal of ‘we want to reduce the suffering of people, and we want to empower people’, and not trying to throw neurodivergent people into institutions, or treating them like they're less human. Instead, looking at what their goals are for what a healthy, happy, autistic life looks like for this person, and if for that person, if that means some medical treatment for certain things, great And if it means a whole lot more social accommodation and acceptance, which I think it does for all of us — these things don't have to be opposed.”

One of NeuroGuidance’s goals in working with and speaking with Dr. Price was understanding how to approach destigmatizing neurodiversity, and their response was extremely community based. “There's a lot of people who are ignorant but trying their best and can be informed. There's a lot of people with negative views on disabilities that come from their own experience and their own internalized feelings. But, we can find a lot of common ground with a lot of these people and with ourselves, just through kind of being in community and having these conversations and seeing where our common interests align, because a lot of times we stand to gain from a lot of the same things: better resources for disabled people, more government benefits for disabled people, more research that's better quality. These things help all of us, no matter how we feel about ourselves.” Dr. Price publishes books and works with universities to increase accommodations and studies about neurodiversity, but they still promote community as the most important pillar of progress. By placing weight on the opinion of the actual neurodivergent community and allowing them to come together in public spaces, society can start understanding these conditions as well as remove the lasting stigmas. 

NeuroGuidance as an organization is largely focused on providing opportunities for neurodivergent students and adults to have a pathway into higher education and beyond that provides them with a greater quality of life. An undeniable part of these missions is providing job opportunities — a topic that Dr. Price, and the rest of the world, has seen the flaws of. “There are people who will give a lot of lip service to ‘we're a welcoming place, we want disabled employees’ and a lot of that comes from the belief that we [the autistic community] are more likely to say yes to things and tolerate things because we have to, and that we're desperate. So don't let yourself be exploited in that way — try to surround yourself with other people you know, and have a support network that'll help you be a sounding board for making these decisions.” 

Dr. Price’s point was in response to a student question about job opportunities — which brought up the contentious point of DEI in corporate and non-corporate workplaces. As of right now, large companies like Google and Apple have neurodiversity hiring policies that clearly dictate and open spots for neurodivergent workers. However, due to the sensitive nature of these policies, workers are often, as Dr. Price mentioned, exploited in ways that are hard to fight. The small population and lack of representation allows for actions from bosses or authority that violate basic conditions that are offered to neurotypical workers. 

Dr. Price is a proponent of self-diagnosis, someone who uses their social media to raise awareness for both queer and neurodivergent rights and situations, and a person who earned their PhD in psychology for the purpose of dismantling the social stigmas that follow the neurodivergent community.