Published on 12, July, 2020
We often get posts on the form asking for advice with autistic children. And I can't help but notice the requests overwhelmingly relate to low functioning autistic children. As someone who is quite high functioning and had a very disrupted and turbulent childhood I can guarantee you it's not because high functioning autistic children don't have just as many issues. Nore is it that high functioning autistic children are particularly rare. We recently had a discussion on this point in another thread and figures I dug up indicated around 40%+ of autistic children being diagnosed these days are of average or above average intelligence.
So the question I'm asking is this. Why don't those parents come looking for help? Is it because the main stream schooling and support systems are so much better at supporting high functioning children? I doubt it. Is it because they tend to think of their child’s behaviour as 'naughty' not 'autistic?' Is it maybe they don't accept or agree with their child’s diagnosis? What do you think it is?
More to the point:
Edit ps: For the simplification of this entire discussion and to avoid a long drawnout arguments over semantics. Instead of high functioning we shall say high IQ meaning an IQ of 85+ and instead of low functioning we will say low IQ meaning an IQ less than 85. As measured on a standard clinically approved IQ test.
There is no such thing as ‘low functioning’, please do not use functioning labels when speaking about fellow members of our autistic community, especially our younger neurokin. It’s dehumanising and inaccurate.
People harmfully and wrongly misconstrue some autistic people as ‘low functioning’ if they have co-occurring needs such as apraxia, learning disability or epilepsy etc. No human deserves to be defined and identified using functioning labels, our worth is not defined by how much we can contribute to society.
Please use the term ‘support needs’ instead and list what specific needs the autistic person you are talking about has.
Please read about the harm that ensues from using functioning labels to describe our autistic community:
https://www.autisticality.co.uk/functioning-labels
I agree that using the term 'support needs' is better than saying 'functioning' but I think it would be good to keep in mind that there isnt a perfect name for everything. And sometimes people cant think of the right words, so they might say something that isnt the best term but it gets their point across. They may also only be familiar with certain terms. I think a nice suggestion of different terminology is fine but just to remember that they probably werent intending to be rude (I know ive said things in a way that I couldve done better). I also think any term could be considered rude or not just depending on the way its used.
I agree that using the term 'support needs' is better than saying 'functioning
Absolutely!
And sometimes people cant think of the right words, so they might say something that isnt the best term but it gets their point across.
I understand what you mean, but this is not just language we’re talking about. After all language shapes perceptions.
Martin said:The problem is that human beings vary hugely in abilities and highlighting this with labels is, at the very least, concise and can be helpful in some circumstances
Yes absolutely and using language such as ‘support needs’ and then giving examples of specific needs is a great and respectful way of describing the variations in human abilities. I am not denying that labels are not helpful, all I aim to convey is that we should be using respectful language to describe people and their experiences, especially our neurokin who may experience prejudice every day.
We know how harmful prejudice is as a small autistic community, and we should avoiding creating more of this with any other member of the wider autistic community.
Thank you for articulating this point.
The problem is that human beings vary hugely in abilities and highlighting this with labels is, at the very least, concise and can be helpful in some circumstances. Better labelling in the case of so many institutions which aim support at 'autistics and people with learning difficulties' would be helpful, as it conflates two sets of people with a rather limited overlap and widely varying needs.