Skip to main content

A brief note on terminology

The language of autism, or rather, of describing autism and autistic people can be vague and shifting. After all, both the science and the community are developing. And I don't claim this to be anything other than my view; nevertheless, sometimes words are used which bother me a bit, and I'd like to address that.

 Asperger's Syndrome: was a diagnosis first introduced in 1944, and removed from widespread medical usage in 2013. As with many obsolete medical terms, increased understanding meant that its definition was no longer felt to be accurate. However, many people diagnosed with Asperger's during those seven decades are still very happy to identify with it (or the colloquial Aspie), and I'd not criticise that. That said, if you don't personally identify as having Asperger's, or you're not talking to/about someone who you know does identify that way, then it's best to avoid the term.

 Autistic Spectrum Disorder: is the medically accepted term. It's more inclusive, based upon the idea that autism is a spectrum of symptoms, rather than a narrow definition. The best word to use to describe autistic people is, surprisingly, autistic. I've noticed that Autie is becoming increasingly common within the community, and that seems fine to me.

 Anti-vaccination campaigns: are pseudoscientific bullshit based on a fraudulent 'study' by a former doctor for personal gain. But even if they had any truth to them (they don't), they're still dehumanising autistic people. How would you like to be called a disease, an injury, the product of some big conspiracy? It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi campaign against mental illness. And that ended in state-sanctioned murder. Don't dehumanise anyone, folks.

 Disease/Disorder: okay, the official name includes the word disorder, but medical usage of that word and common usage of that word are not the same. Unless you're discussing it in a strictly medical sense, and you understand that medical sense, then best give it a miss. And certainly don't use the word disease. Autism is not a disease, and it's not what is commonly meant by the word disorder. It's just a difference, that's all. Again, this goes back to not dehumanising people.

 Cure: seriously, if you so much as whisper the word cure in relation to autism, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. It is utterly vile. And yes, there are people out there proposing 'cures' for autism - many of which are downright abusive, some of which are potentially fatal. It is not a disease, so there's no reason to use the word 'cure'. Autistic people are not wrong, bad, evil, a mistake. The world isn't well-suited to providing a place for us, and it makes sense to both fight that and to help autistic people live more easily in the world. But that latter is a matter of learning skills, not of 'cures'. Don't dehumanise anyone, folks.



 Allistic: someone who is not autistic.



I may add to this if other thoughts come to mind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I've not been able to write much lately

Hello. I know I've not added anything to this blog in a while. It's not been by choice. My brain has, for want of a better term, collapsed. The best I can do is to get out of bed at some point during the day, to eat, to breathe, to hydrate. Work - and some other daily life stresses, including my parents' health, but primarily work - has completely overwhelmed me. I can't do it any more; for one thing, there's been far too much of it, I've been covering three jobs for six months now, but there's also the strain of being in a work environment, the sensory overload, the masking, the unpredictability. What has been exhausting before has now become highly debilitating. My life has just... well, it's broken. I can't do anything. That, in itself, is saddening (I love to walk and to cook, and these have been taken from me of late), and being all sad and woe-is-me about that just serves to pile on to the underlying problem. Underlying problem being: autist...
Post a Comment
Read more

I get pissed off by a tweet

This is by no means the worst thing I've read about autism: Nevertheless, it struck a nerve, and pushed me over the line from 'maybe I should write a blog' to 'yep, definitely need to start writing a blog'. Over the past year, I've found myself increasingly assertive in opposing misconceptions and lies about autism wherever I find them. At the heart of these, so often, is the idea of autism as a disease - one you can catch, one you can perhaps cure. When this rears its head, you'll often find scientifically-literate folk fighting back - and I'm glad they do, it's important work. However, there's a personal perspective that I always want to add, something very simple yet so often overlooked: I am not a disease. Look at that tweet. It's not shouty and crazy, it's not full of woo. In a very level and apparently considered (if scientifically nonsensical) manner, it presents autism as a dreadful condition that one can catch from a p...
Post a Comment
Read more

I decide to write a blog

Before we began with the questions, and there were a lot of questions, I was told how it would work: the questions, then I'd go out into the waiting room for a while whilst they discuss my assessment, reach some conclusions, and if there was any uncertainty, I'd be asked to come back for further questions, further assessment. Certainly, the impression seemed to be, that second stage of assessment was more likely than not. Then the questions came, and I answered best I could, and as planned, I was asked to wait outside. No sooner had I sat down than they called me back; diagnosis of autism, no further assessment required, not borderline, clear as day, autistic. Lurch back eight months: a helpful therapist called Liz, a curious rounded room in the turret of an odd-looking building, asking me if it had ever been suggested I might be autistic (no, never). I did some informal tests, was put on a waiting list, eventually got that assessment. But Liz told me something else, she to...
Post a Comment
Read more