2022 Round-Up: 9 of Last Year's Autism Infographics
The 9 Autism Infographics of 2022
Like many late-in-life diagnosed Autistic women, autism became somewhat of a special interest for me. As a Psychologist, I became fascinated by how little the mental health field understood about autism among women, genderqueer people, BIPOC, and adults. When I first started Neurodivergent Insights autism infographics were one of the first things I started creating.
My brain is highly visual and I do best when I can visualize information and data into a cohesive image, so naturally, creating infographics was an intuitive way for me to capture a pattern of data. Visualized data tells a story. And there are many untold stories when it comes to autism. I am so pleased that people have continued to find these infographics a helpful and validating resource.
Whenever I create infographics, you can find a mini literature review that goes with them where you’ll find links to the original research studies. All research studies are imperfect, and thus, all infographics are imperfect. However, I still find them to be helpful tools for capturing the underlying story. You can find my full library of Autism infographics here. I’ve polished up some of my most popular Autism Infographics from 2022 and compiled them in one place for you all. Enjoy!
ADHD and Autism: How ADHD and Autism are Related
This Autism infographic provides an overview of the overlap between autism and ADHD. It's been a big year for exploring the connection between ADHD and autism, and for good reason. A lot of people with ADHD also have autism or exhibit autistic traits and vice versa. It's also common for families to be made up of both ADHDers and Autistic people.
You may be thinking, "Why are we just now figuring this out?" Well, up until 2013, you couldn't be diagnosed with both ADHD and autism at the same time. People used to think you were either ADHD or autistic, not both.
But now, we're making up for the lost time. If you’d like to read the research that goes with this infographic, you can find it here. You can also find my ADHD vs. Autism Venn diagram here, which covers similar topics.
Autism and Sexual Diversity
This year has also been a big year for the growing recognition of the overlap between sexual diversity, gender diversity, and neurodiversity. This autism infographic provides an overview of the overlap between Autism and various forms of sexual diversity.
To put it simply: If you’re Autistic and straight, you’re in the minority of Autistic people. This is still an area of emergent research, and we likely need much larger studies to understand the true prevalence of overlap. You can read the mini-literature review and see the original post here.
Autism and Bipolar
Autism co-occurs with many mental health conditions (PTSD, depression, anxiety, and yes Bipolar). This autism infographic looks at the overlap of autism and bipolar. This is an important one to understand because when both are present one diagnosis can be easily missed. Autism can also look like bipolar (our Autistic burnouts can look like severe depressive phases and our special interest energy can look a bit like mania). You can read more and find links to the original research in this blog post. You can also learn more about the similarities and differences in my Autism vs. Bipolar Venn diagram.
Special Edition: Autism in Girls
Autism is poorly understood among girls and women. A recent study found that 80% of Autistic girls remain undiagnosed by the age of 18. You can read more and find the research citations here in this blog post.
During Autism Awareness month I made this special edition Autism infographic. While there is a movement to move from awareness to acceptance it’s important to remember that awareness work is not done. We still need much more awareness for Autistic girls, BIPOC, and Trans people (see the next two infographics).
Special Edition: Trans-Autism
Many Autistic people identify as genderqueer and Trans. And Trans people are more likely to be Autistic. We’re just now beginning to understand and appreciate the significance of this overlap. This has a lot of implications for gender-affirming and Autism support. You can find links to the original research and research studies here in the original blog post.
This was part of my special Autism infographic series on raising awareness of autism among underrepresented groups.
Special Edition: BIPOC and Autism
BIPOC children tend to receive a diagnosis later than white children (or not at all). They also often receive less support after diagnosis. While the gap is lessening, there is still much work to be done, particularly among Latinx and Indigenous communicates. You can find links to the original research and research studies here in the original blog post.
This was part of my special Autism infographic series on raising awareness of autism among underrepresented groups.
Women and Autism
Women and Autism was one of the first autism infographics I made as I was trying to more deeply understand how I’d gone 37 years with no idea! The story of Autistic women is a dire one. We’re much more vulnerable (than Autistic men and neurotypical women) and much less likely to be diagnosed. You can find links to the original research and research studies here in the original blog post here.
Autism and Sleep
It’s no secret that sleep is ROUGH for Autistic people. However, I had no idea that my sleep struggles were connected to my Autism until I began doing research in this area. I was fascinated that so many of my lifetime sleep struggles (insomnia, sleep paralysis, sleep walking, and more) could be explained by Autism.
Complicating matters, sleep issues can further make executive functioning, sensory sensitivities, and socializing more difficult! You can see the original Autism infographic and blog post here.
Sleep is a mini special interest of mine, so I did a whole series on sleep. This is my deep-dive blog post into all things neurodivergent sleep, and I also made a workbook this year for neurodivergent people struggling with sleep.
How are Autism and Trauma Related?
PTSD is common among Autistic people, particularly Autistic women and genderqueer people. Unfortunately, when a person has both, one is often missed, and Autistic traits are often discounted as “just trauma.” I wanted to capture the complexity of this situation through this autism infographic.
Emergent research shows we experience PTSD and traumatic events at much higher rates. In one study, it was found that 60% of Autistic people were likely to have a lifetime prevalence rate of PTSD. This is likely for several reasons, but to simplify, it can be boiled down to two reasons
1) We are victimized and experience traumatic events at higher rates,
2) We have more vulnerable neurobiology, so when we experience a traumatic event, we are more likely to develop PTSD following that event.
If you’re Autistic and haven’t had PTSD, you are perhaps in the minority! There are two big reasons this matters:
1) For late identified Autistic people, our Autistic traits often get dismissed as “just trauma.”
2) If we receive trauma treatment that doesn’t consider our underlying neurotype, it is harder for us to make progress, and it may cause more damage/trauma.
You can see the mini literature review and original blog post here. You can also find the Venn diagram of Autism vs. PTSD here. And the ebook I created that discusses Autism and PTSD here.
And That’s a Wrap on 2022 Autism Infographics!
Thanks for checking out my Autism infographics from 2022. If you’d like these PDF or PNG forms you can now download them here.
This post was proofread by Grammarly, my go-to for proofreading and catching all the details I naturally miss! Grammarly is entirely free to use. Click here to give it a try.
