Case study: cognitive errorsin court experts’ assessments in autism spectrum cases

Abstract

Purpose: The paper presents conclusions from a comparative analysis of the medical and court documentation of a 5-year-old patient on the autism spectrum. The goal of the research was to identify potential cognitive errors made by the evaluating court experts. Case description: During the meeting of the County Committee for the Assessment of Disability, the patient was denied a proper dis- ability certificate taking into account his actual level of impaired functioning. The patient’s family appealed against the decision and had court experts appointed to re-assess the case. The documentation created in this process served as the material for the analysis presented in this paper. Comment: The study analyses the risk of cognitive errors that may occur in the assessments issued by court experts appointed to evaluate the level of patient’s disability. This is due to the fact that such evaluations are often based, among other things, on a stereo- typical perception of ASD-people or personal susceptibility to certain heuristics. Self-advocacy and neuro-diversity movements have been campaigning to change the assessment-issuing system for years but have been unsuccessful. Exposing the cognitive errors that can be found in expert assessments in a full-scale study might constitute an important step towards improving the current state of affairs.