Educators Worry About How Trump’s Autism Rhetoric Will Affect Students, Parents

President Donald Trump’s recent announcements about autism didn’t center on education. But educators still expect his comments—including an assertion, disputed by scientists, that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes the condition—to pop up in emotional conversations with parents.

Educators and people with autism have long confronted misinformation about the condition, said Jennifer Paz Ryan, a former teacher and clinical psychologist in Denver who contracts with school districts to assess students with disabilities, including autism. But an address from the Oval Office raises the spectacle of those falsehoods to a new level, she said.

“It’s pseudoscience, and it has so much more power” coming from the president, Paz Ryan said. “It’s another myth, and it adds to this ongoing battle that autistic individuals have had to endure for a very long time.”

Careless rhetoric fuels a stigma that harms students with autism and can make it difficult for educators to build crucial trust with their families, educators and advocates said. Of particular concern: the administration’s efforts to identify a singular cause of the condition may heap blame and guilt on parents who need support.

The public narrative about autism “has become political and polarized” following Trump’s remarks, said Robyn Linscott, the director of education and family policy for The Arc of the United States, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “It could potentially put educators in uncomfortable positions.”

What Trump and Kennedy said about autism

Trump and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke from the Oval Office Monday, blaming the use of acetaminophen, commonly sold as Tylenol, during pregnancy for a rise in autism diagnoses. Trump also resurfaced long-debunked claims that childhood vaccines cause autism, which have contributed to lower rates of childhood immunizations and concerns about the reemergence of preventable illnesses.

“I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don’t take vaccines and don’t take any pills that have no autism,” Trump said, apparently referring to Amish people. “Does that tell you something?”

Scientific and medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, quickly refuted Trump’s claims. There is no research that shows a causal link between acetaminophen and autism, they said.

Scientists have found weaknesses in the methodology of preliminary studies that suggested a correlation between use of the over-the-counter medicine and changes to neurodevelopmental outcomes, ACOG said in a statement. A more rigorous 2024 study of 2.5 million Swedish children, which accounted for genetic commonalities and other factors shared within sibling groups, found no evidence of increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability associated with maternal acetaminophen use, the organization noted.

In a letter to physicians sent after Trump’s announcement, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged studies that dispute Trump’s claims.

“It is important to note that while an association between acetaminophen and neurological conditions has been described in many studies, a causal relationship has not been established and there are contrary studies in the scientific literature,” the agency wrote. “It is also noted that acetaminophen is the only over-the-counter drug approved for use to treat fevers during pregnancy, and high fevers in pregnant women can pose a risk to their children.”

Trump and Kennedy also announced new money for data-driven autism research and plans to authorize the experimental use of leucovorin, a drug commonly used to treat side effects from chemotherapy, for children with certain autism symptoms, like affects on speech. But autism researchers expressed skepticism, NPR reported.

Autism diagnoses grew with expanded criteria, early screening efforts

Scientists and advocates for people with autism have said it’s harmful to claim there is a simple cause or solution for the complex developmental disorder, which can affect speech, learning, emotional regulation, and social skills. Scientists believe autism emerges from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Rates of autism diagnoses have climbed over the last two decades. About 1 in 31 U.S. children have autism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in April. That’s an increase from about 1 in 150 children in the early 2000s.

That uptick in cases came after doctors expanded diagnostic criteria to include milder symptoms and worked to expand screening in hopes of identifying and intervening earlier.

Advocacy groups like The Arc worry that, by painting autism as “a crisis” and using harsh and dehumanizing language, federal officials will exacerbate harmful stigma.

In April, for example, Kennedy said “autism destroys families” and called it an “individual tragedy” for those who receive the diagnosis.

“The understanding and acceptance of autism has come a long way,” said Linscott, a former special education teacher whose adult brother has autism. “I sometimes wish he was growing up in today’s world. But I think [Trump’s and Kennedy’s remarks] are going to have a significantly negative impact on stigma.”

Stigma affects students with autism and their families

The Trump administration’s rhetoric around autism has already had real-world consequences, said Paz Ryan, the Denver psychologist. When Kennedy said in May that the federal government would create a database of information about people with autism, parents said they were more reluctant to pursue a diagnosis for their children for fear of how the information would be used, she said.

That plan, which the Trump administration later walked back, would have compiled information from autistic people’s insurance claims, medical records, and wearable devices like smart watches to probe a cause. It was met with alarm from a broad span of organization concerned about civil rights.

“This just ignites that same kind of fear,” Paz Ryan said of the Monday announcement.

For parents, shame and fear of blame may be a hurdle to early identification and treatment, Linscott said. She’s particularly concerned those fears may further fuel racial disparities, like the tendency for Black boys with autism to be misdiagnosed with emotional disturbance instead.

Getting to the root of parental concerns

Misunderstandings about autism also pose a broader risk, said Jessica Calarco, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies education, parenting, and medical decisionmaking.

“If autism can be easily prevented … then it’s easy to treat autism as an individual responsibility, a risk that families have to manage without support from the state,” she said.

That may contribute, even subtly, to diminished public concern about things like funding for special education, Calarco said. The Trump administration has already bypassed Congress to pull funding for resource centers that support parents of children with disabilities, training for special education teachers, research on how to support students in special education as they transition into college and careers, and efforts to address a shortage of school psychologists, who play a role in assessing and supporting students with disabilities.

It’s understandable that parents of children with autism want to understand the cause and nature of the condition, Calarco said, even as public conversation about the subject typically lacks needed nuance. Before debunked research about vaccines and autism rose to prominence in the 1990s, it was common to blame emotionally cold, detached “refrigerator mothers” for their children’s autism, she said. The new theory about vaccines helped alleviate that shame, but eventually grew into a new form of self-blame for parents who questioned their decisions to get their children immunized.

While schools don’t prescribe medication or treat pregnant women, special education teachers have frequent interactions with students’ parents and are often some of the most trusted people in their circles, Calarco said, so it’s natural that such a high-profile news event would lead to discussions in schools. Previous research has suggested that when public health issues, like COVID-related school closures, grew intertwined with partisan political debates, it exacerbated mistrust between families and schools, she said.

It’s important for educators to acknowledge families’ and students’ underlying emotions in these conversations, educators said. For example, a parent looking for a cause to blame may need to hear assurances from educators that they value their child and want to ensure they receive needed supports.

Whether or not they agree on the science, educators discussing the recent announcements with parents should have “a lot of compassion, and a lot of empathy,” especially if parents are experiencing shame or self-blame, Paz Ryan said.

“Recognize that if somebody is sharing this, they are probably feeling pretty vulnerable,” she said.