Social work research should adopt a critical approach to research methodology, opposing oppression that is reproduced through epistemological assumptions or research methods and processes. However, traditional approaches to autism research have often problematised and pathologized autistic¹ individuals, reinforcing autistic people’s positions as passive subjects. This has resulted in autistic people being largely excluded from the production of knowledge about autism, and about the needs of autistic people. Participatory approaches promote collaborative approaches to enquiry and posit autistic people as active co-constructors of knowledge, a stance that is congruent with social work values of social justice and liberation. However, Covid-19 is not only altering our everyday life but also upending social research. This paper discusses the challenges faced by a participatory study involving autistic people during the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper examines how Covid-19 increased the individual vulnerability of autistic participants and changed their research priorities, increased the researcher’s decision-making power, and placed greater emphasis on barriers created by inaccessible methods. Covid-19 did not present novel challenges, but rather exacerbated existing tensions and inevitable challenges that are inherent in adopting an approach that aims to oppose oppression.

社会工作研究应该采用批判性的研究方法论，反对通过认识论假设或研究方法和过程再现的压迫。然而，自闭症研究的传统方法经常将自闭症¹个体，强化自闭症患者作为被动主体的地位。这导致自闭症患者在很大程度上被排除在有关自闭症和自闭症患者需求的知识生产之外。参与式方法促进了探究的协作方法，并将自闭症患者视为知识的积极共同构建者，这一立场与社会正义和解放的社会工作价值观一致。然而，Covid-19 不仅改变了我们的日常生活，还颠覆了社会研究。本文讨论了在 Covid-19 大流行期间涉及自闭症患者的参与式研究所面临的挑战。本文探讨了 Covid-19 如何增加自闭症参与者的个体脆弱性并改变他们的研究重点，增加研究人员的决策权，并更加强调由难以接近的方法造成的障碍。Covid-19 并没有带来新的挑战，而是加剧了现有的紧张局势和不可避免的挑战，这些挑战是采取旨在反对压迫的方法所固有的。