Stop Infantilizing Us: The Deep Harm of Autism’s Childlike Branding

Bridgette Hamstead

Every April, as Autism Acceptance Month approaches, social media feeds, school bulletin boards, corporate campaigns, and nonprofit events are flooded with the same predictable visuals. Puzzle pieces. Handprints. Primary colors. Crayon scribbles. Scrabble tiles. All of them framed with the language of awareness and inclusion. But for many autistic adults, these images do not feel welcoming or celebratory. They feel patronizing, infantilizing, and deeply alienating.

These symbols were not created by autistic people. They were created about us, without us. They emerged from a history of deficit-based models that framed autism as something tragic or broken, something to be solved or cured. The most well-known example is the puzzle piece, introduced in the 1960s by the National Autistic Society in the UK. The original logo featured a weeping child inside a puzzle piece, explicitly communicating that autistic people were incomplete and isolated. Even though the imagery has been softened over the years, its core message remains the same. When you use a puzzle piece to represent autism, you are reinforcing the idea that autistic people are mysterious, fragmented, or in need of solving. That we are not whole.

The puzzle piece is not the only problem. The use of handprints, building blocks, and primary school aesthetics in autism-related branding sends a clear message: this condition belongs to children. The bright colors and juvenile fonts may seem cheerful or friendly, but they carry an unspoken assumption that autism is something that happens in childhood and should be addressed or intervened in as early as possible. This erases the existence of autistic adults and implies that we are either no longer autistic once we grow up or that our lives no longer matter in public conversations.

But autism is not a childhood disorder. It is a lifelong neurotype. Autistic children grow into autistic adults. We do not age out of our neurodivergence. Yet the imagery used to represent us fails to grow with us. It freezes us in time, trapping us in the cultural imagination as perpetual children. This has serious consequences. When society sees us only as kids, it becomes easier to speak over us. Easier to ignore our voices, our autonomy, our lived experience. Easier to make decisions about us without consulting us. Easier to justify patronizing or controlling behavior in the name of protection.

This infantilization affects every area of our lives. In healthcare, autistic adults are often dismissed or misdiagnosed because providers expect autism to look like a young boy who struggles with eye contact and has obvious social challenges. In the workplace, autistic professionals are denied accommodations or excluded from leadership because they do not fit the stereotype. In media, autistic characters are almost always portrayed as quirky children or socially awkward young men, rarely as complex adults with inner lives, families, careers, or agency. Even in advocacy spaces, autistic adults are often sidelined in favor of parents, therapists, or nonprofit leaders who claim to speak for us.

The harm of this representation is not only symbolic. It affects funding, policy, and public perception. Organizations that use puzzle pieces and handprints often attract more donations because their branding evokes sympathy and innocence. But that same branding pushes autistic adults out of the picture. It centers the comfort of neurotypical audiences rather than the dignity of autistic people. It makes people feel good about “helping” without actually addressing the structural barriers we face. It turns autism into a symbol rather than a lived reality.

Many of us who were late-diagnosed or misdiagnosed spent years feeling like something was wrong with us. We grew up absorbing the message that our differences were shameful or broken. When we finally found the language to describe our neurodivergence, it was often through community with other autistic adults, not through the institutions that claimed to represent us. We had to unlearn the very same narratives that these images continue to reinforce. Seeing those same narratives recycled year after year, even under the banner of acceptance, is not just frustrating. It is retraumatizing.

I do not engage with organizations or events that use infantilizing imagery in their branding. I will not attend your autism walk if your flyers are covered in cartoon children and rainbow puzzle pieces. I will not collaborate with you if your materials reduce me to a symbol of innocence or brokenness. I do not care how well-intentioned the message is. If it relies on outdated and harmful visual language, it is not inclusive. It is erasure.

What we need instead are representations created by and for autistic people. We need visuals that reflect the full diversity and adulthood of the neurodivergent community. We need to move away from the aesthetic of charity and toward the language of justice, agency, and self-determination. We are not projects to be solved. We are not cute mascots for your awareness campaign. We are not children frozen in time.

We are adults. We are professionals. We are artists, parents, organizers, researchers, and leaders. And we are tired of being spoken for, especially by campaigns that reduce us to imagery that was never meant to honor our complexity. Stop using puzzle pieces. Stop using handprints. Stop building your branding around ideas that comfort neurotypical audiences while alienating autistic people.

We are here. We are whole. And we are asking you to see us clearly.