Epistemic injustices: when autism and dyscommunication combine, how can one’s choices be heard?

Despite institutional injunctions (UN, 2006), autistic people remain little involved in processes that promote their social expressiveness (Ebersold, 2015). Taking an anthropocentric approach, the Participe 3.0 programme uses innovative virtual reality systems to help dyscommunicative autistic adults to participate more fully and interact socially in their shared inclusive housing project. How can these people with cognitive, language and psycho-sensory disorders, who have historically been marginalised, be encouraged to make their own decisions, thereby gaining social recognition? How can alternative communication artefacts be used to minimise the processes of silencing and create an 'inclusive hermeneutic climate' capable of overcoming identity-based prejudices (Fricker, 2007)? The results show the importance of a collaborative system, in which human and digital mediations promote an ethic centred on the subject-participant, in recognition of "his or her capacities and singularity" (Bourdon, 2021; Sen, 2009). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]