I’m glad to finally see someone calling out the idea that autistic people can’t be creative unless we also have ADHD. It’s a misconception that has always bothered me, especially when it comes from researchers and other professionals.
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its always so weird when people assign nebulous qualities ti diagnoses like “autistic people arent creative” or “autistic people are nicer” like we’ve been fighting so hard for people to realise that we’re all different with different strengths, weaknesses and personalities and its just going back on that
Meanwhile if anything my ADHD seems to halt my creativity at every turn 
I don’t understand why anyone would even find this worth researching, other than to prove / justify their own biases. Who does this help?
Anyway, it seems clear to me that almost any kind of life difference (disability, hardship, other types of uncommon upbringing or life experiences) all lend themselves well to the person growing up to be seen as more creative on average. Perceived creativity is relative to the observer’s own sense of creativity, so merely having lived a different life, having enjoyed & focused on different stimuli over time, will create a higher sense of perceived creativity. Someone who simply sees the world differently would be seen as creative by an ‘ordinary’ person just for painting what they see in front of them.
I can think of loads of different reasons why autism by itself would result in creativity. Differences in sensory perception, salience mechanisms, reward mechanisms, and definitely differences in recall and memory (a huge factor in the process of inspiration). There’s also differences in the rules we are given to follow, the expectations had of us. All that stuff has large impacts on what kinds of things will come back out of us when we sit down to write, paint, etc.
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We really shouldn’t talk about the human experience only in clinical terms. We need to broaden our conception of ourselves.
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