Autism and comedy: using theatre workshops to explore humour with adolescents on the spectrum

This paper discusses a project that used comedy workshops to explore the humour of autistic teenagers, focusing the discussion around three traits often – and negatively – associated with autism. The paper will then point to ways of rethinking these traits, and argue that doing so opens up a space for considering the aesthetics of comedy on the spectrum. In this way, I suggest that we can understand autistic humour on a model of difference rather than deficit.