Television has long struggled to portray neurodivergence accurately, with Hollywood historically relying on neurotypical actors playing stereotyped, often white male "savant" archetypes, which has sidelined women, people of colour and the wider spectrum of neurodivergent experience. This piece examines how newer shows, including HBO Max's The Pitt and Netflix's Love on the Spectrum, are pushing back against that narrow template by casting neurodivergent performers and consulting real neurodivergent people in storytelling.

Tal Anderson, an Emmy nominee for The Pitt, argues that conflating different neurodivergent experiences under one umbrella leads audiences to assume all autistic people have low support needs, erasing much of the community. She praises the show's writers for subtly capturing how autistic women's behaviour differs from men's, particularly through her character Becca King's push for independence and bodily autonomy from her twin sister, Dr Mel King. Meanwhile, Love on the Spectrum director Cian O'Clery says the docu-reality dating series, which began in Australia before its Emmy-winning US adaptation, was never meant to represent autism as a whole but to centre the individual stories of its cast, who he treats as key consultants.