The Uneven Burden of Being Understood: Communication Across the Spectrum

Communication is often treated as a neutral exchange, an uncomplicated transfer of information between willing participants. In practice, however, it is neither neutral nor evenly distributed. The ability to be understood, believed, accommodated, or forgiven for missteps is shaped by social norms, institutional expectations, and power dynamics that predate any individual interaction. For many disabled people, particularly those on the autism spectrum and those with cognitive, speech, or sensory differences, communication is not merely a skill to be refined but a burden to be managed.

This burden does not arise from difference alone. It emerges from a social environment that presumes a narrow range of communicative styles as default, competent, and professional, while treating deviations from those norms as deficiencies. From a disability justice perspective, this reflects not an individual mismatch but a systemic failure to design communication practices around interdependence rather than assimilation. Understanding, in this context, is not a shared responsibility. It is an expectation disproportionately placed on those least empowered to redefinethe terms of engagement.

Communication as a Social Contract

Communication functions as an implicit social contract, one shaped by histories of exclusion, normative assumptions, and unequal access to power. Unspoken rules govern how quickly one should respond, how much emotion is appropriate, how direct or indirect speech ought to be, and which cues, verbal, nonverbal, or contextual, are considered meaningful. These rules are rarely articulated, yet they are rigorously enforced.

When communication succeeds, it is often credited to individual clarity or social aptitude. When it fails, responsibility is similarly individualized. This framing obscures the relational nature of communication and overlooks the extent to which dominant norms dictate what is legible, acceptable, or credible. The result is a system in which misunderstanding is treated as personal failure rather than as evidence of misaligned expectations.

For disabled communicators, this contract is particularly unforgiving. Disability justice asks us to interrogate not how individuals fail to meet communicative norms, but how those norms have been constructed to exclude certain bodies, minds, and ways of relating. Deviation from expected tone, pacing, eye contact, or conversational rhythm is frequently interpreted as rudeness, disengagement, or incompetence. The possibility that the contract itself may be exclusionary is rarely considered.

The Spectrum Is Not Monolithic

Discussions of communication across the spectrum are often undermined by oversimplification. Autism, in particular, is routinely flattened into binary categories: verbal versus nonverbal, high-functioning versus low-functioning, capable versus dependent. These distinctions are not only imprecise but misleading.

Verbal fluency is frequently mistaken for communicative ease, emotional regulation, or cognitive capacity. Conversely, limited or atypical speech is often equated with a lack of understanding or agency. Such assumptions ignore the complexity of how people process, express, and interpret information.

Even among those who communicate fluently, masking, the conscious or unconscious suppression of natural communicative tendencies to meet social expectations, can obscure support needs. Within disability justice frameworks, masking is understood not as adaptation alone, but as a survival strategy necessitated by environments that punish difference. What appears as competence may be the result of sustained cognitive and emotional labor, often at highpersonal cost. The absence of visible struggle is not evidence of equitable access.

The Burden of Translation

One of the most pervasive yet underexamined aspects of disabled communication is the expectation of translation. Disability justice situates this demand within broader patterns of extractive labor, where marginalized people are required to make themselves legible to systems unwilling to change. Disabled individuals are routinely required to translate their needs, experiences, and modes of expression into forms that are palatable to non-disabled audiences. This labor is rarely reciprocated.

Translation extends beyond literal language. It includes adjusting tone to avoid being perceived as confrontational, simplifying explanations to preempt dismissal, and providing excessive context to establish credibility. In many settings, failure to perform this translation is interpreted as noncompliance or lack of effort rather than as a boundary or limitation.

This expectation positions disabled people as perpetual intermediaries between their realities and dominant communicative norms. The burden is cumulative. Over time, constant self-translation can erode trust, autonomy, and the willingness to engage at all.

Communication Beyond Disability Spaces

Miscommunication is not confined to explicitly disability-related contexts. It shapes interactions in workplaces, healthcare systems, educational institutions, families, and advocacy spaces. In each of these environments, power determines whose communication is granted flexibility and whose is scrutinized.

Non-disabled individuals are often afforded the presumption of clarity. Ambiguity in their communication is more likely to be interpreted charitably, as a misunderstanding to be resolved rather than a flaw to be corrected. Disabled communicators, by contrast, are frequently required to demonstrate precision, consistency, and emotional regulation to a degree that exceeds what is expected of others.

This imbalance has material consequences. Disability justice emphasizes that communication barriers are not merely interpersonal inconveniences but access issues with tangible impacts on housing, employment, healthcare, and civic participation. Decisions about employment, medical care, educational placement, and credibility are routinely influenced by subjective assessments of communication. When those assessments are grounded in narrow norms, exclusion becomes both predictable and normalized.

Access Versus Comfort

Efforts to improve communication access are often constrained by an unspoken prioritization of comfort. Disability justice challenges this framing by distinguishing between discomfort and harm and by asserting that access cannot be contingent on the convenience of those already centered. Accommodations are deemed reasonable insofar as they do not disrupt existing workflows, challenge professional norms, or require meaningful adaptation from those in positions of authority.

This framing conflates accessibility with inconvenience and positions discomfort as a legitimate barrier to inclusion. Yet discomfort is not harm, and efficiency is not neutrality. A communication environment that prioritizes ease for the majority while marginalizing differences cannot be considered equitable.

Genuine access requires a shift from tolerating difference to engaging with it. It demands flexibility not only in tools and formats but in expectations themselves. This includes reexamining assumptions about professionalism, competence, and participation.

Rethinking Responsibility

The question at the center of communication across the spectrum is not whether disabled people can be understood, but who is expected to adapt—and at what cost. When misunderstanding is framed as an individual failing, structural barriers remain intact. When it is treated as shared information, it becomes an opportunity for recalibration.

Understanding is not a passive state. Disability justice reframes understanding as a collective responsibility, one rooted in interdependence, mutual adaptation, and the recognition that access is an ongoing practice rather than a one-time accommodation. It is an active, reciprocal process shaped by willingness, power, and context. Redistributing the responsibility of being understood does not require abandoning standards of clarity or accountability. It requires acknowledging that those standards are neither universal nor immutable.

If communication is to function as a bridge rather than a gatekeeping mechanism, the uneven burden it currently imposes must be named and addressed. Only then can understanding become not a privilege granted to some, but a collective practice sustained by all.

A Note of Thanks

Thank you for taking the time to engage with this piece. Thoughtful attention, reflection, and a willingness to sit with complexity are themselves forms of access-making. Your reading is part of the shared work of building more just and communicative worlds.

Ian Allan

Self-Advocate for The Arc of Northern Virginia

Ian Allan is a self-advocate with a deep commitment to policy literacy, systems change, and disability justice. Through The Arc of Northern Virginia, he works to ensure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not merely served by systems, but are actively shaping them.