Cassandra Affective Deprivation Disorder (CADD) is a trauma-based folk disorder embraced by neurotypical NT advocacy groups. CADD is caused, such groups claim, by having a romantic relationship with an autistic person. Reliant on understandings of autism as a condition of extreme maleness, CADD draws on cis/hetero/normative rhetorics of risk that attend autism's figuration as a disorder of invisible and emotional disrepair, where (not) doing autistics is tantamount to becoming them. In this essay, I examine how CADD proponents exalt divisions between logic and emotion in their appeals to ableist, anti-queer understandings of autistic emotion, communication, and interrelation.

Neutrality is often impossible when disabled teachers are at the front of the classroom. This article unpacks three domains in which neutrality needs to be cripped: in response to students’ resistance to disability content, when considering the audiences for our pedagogy, and when teachers need accommodations.

By understanding the verbal and nonverbal manifestations of autism as a rhetorical imperative “a perspective that involves applying Krista Ratcliffe’s concept of rhetorical listening” scholars can do much to dissolve the idea of otherness that appears in discussions of this topic.