Afghan Millennials, Elders & Autism: The Generational Divide No One Talks About

I've been in the child development field for over a decade, the past eight years specifically in the disabilities sector, and eventually specializing in autism as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. As a BCBA, I work extensively with parents of all backgrounds, races, religions, and socioeconomic statuses. Over the last five years, I've been coming across more and more Muslim and Afghan parents and families navigating autism.

Understanding autism is challenging for any parent. For Afghan families, it comes with added complexity. Fitting an autism diagnosis into family and social environments that carry deeply held expectations is a layer most clinicians don't account for. As a culture, we give utmost respect to our elders, so it's not surprising that Gen X and Baby Boomer family members are quick to dismiss autism, or ADHD for that matter. But in defense of our elders, and I say this having observed it across the broader Asian diaspora which includes Central and South Asia, it's not that they're dismissive by nature. It's that the language and terminology to accurately describe autism simply doesn't exist in many of our cultures.

Our elders almost certainly knew someone in their family or extended circle who had a member who was considered "odd," "quiet," "naughty," "loud," "ill-mannered," "isolated," a "late developer," or just "too much." They've always been describing the spectrum and masked behaviors, just the only way they knew how.

But that doesn't translate to an autism diagnosis. The pattern I've noticed as a BCBA is that millennial parents in the West are having children on the spectrum, whether it's their first, second, or third child, and they don't fully understand the condition themselves. Add a diaspora language barrier on top of that, and when they try to explain it to their elders, it lands poorly.

So while we're seeing neurodiversity increase within our communities, one of the core familial challenges is that we don't have the language, terminology, or framework to explain to older family members what "neurodivergence," "stimming," "masking," "meltdowns," or "stereotypy" actually mean.

This gap is what drives the majority of conflict between millennial parents of autistic children and their Gen X and Boomer parents, uncles, aunts, in-laws, and grandparents.

The challenge runs deeper than social communication too. Autism isn't one thing. It's not only about impairments in social-emotional connection and communication. Immune systems, gut health, psychological wellbeing, learning, and development can all be affected. It's a complex condition to understand even in English, let alone when you're trying to translate it accurately into a mother tongue. The result is information that comes out either too clinical or too broken, and like so many of these kids themselves, autism ends up lost in translation.

When families don't have the words, they can't build understanding. When they can't build understanding, they can't build support. And when there's no support, the weight falls entirely on parents who are already stretched thin, trying to advocate for their child in a system that wasn't built for them, while also managing the silent pressure of a community that doesn't quite have the vocabulary to stand beside them yet.

If we work collectively to accurately describe autism in our mother tongues, to capture the frameworks and the terminology in ways that actually resonate, we are far more likely to see older generations in our communities show up differently. A lot of the burden that parents carry from their own parents or in-laws can be lifted. The gap is between diaspora language and older generation language, and we need to find ways to close it. Because raising a child, especially in our communities, is the work of an entire village. And we can't blame the village for not showing up when they have no idea what they're dealing with.

- Sara Wais, MSc., BCBA, LBA
Submitted on: June 3rd, 2026