Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey Everyone,
I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on functioning labels I see a lot of videos and posts on various social media pages. That are of the view that are a bad thing that segregates people within the autistic community. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about it, I'm not sure I care enough to pass judgment on the topic. I do understand the purpose of them because there are autistic that can live independently with minimal to no help from all the way up to people that need full time round the clock care and everyone in-between.
I would never judge or treat any autistic person differently if they were for example nonverbal vs someone like myself who would be considered high functioning. I guess I just don't necessarily understand why there seems to be a of distaste towards functioning labels.
Strictly speaking we aught to talk about autistic people vs autistic people with intellectual disability, however since the later is generally held to outnumber the former no one ever bothers to add the 'with intellectual disability' bit on the end in the same way that you rarely hear anyone refer to someone as having low functioning autism. It is unfortunate that we need to tack something on the end of autism to differentiate us from those who have both autism and I.D. but we do. Otherwise we'll never be able to educate the kind of people who go around saying 'but you don't look autistic.'
Our life courses and needs are radically different from those with low functioning autism. Consider Maslows triangle of needs. It's obvious to those around them that they need help with physical needs, food, housing, healthcare etc. By extension it becomes obvious that they need help with their social needs and while its often addressed in an infantilised way it is generally addressed.
By comparison high functioning autistic people can, assuming they have money, feed themselves, pay rent, remember to lock the door, understand how to visit their gp if they are sick etc. High functioning people can work independently with little assistance. It's actually working in a group or getting through the interview process for the job in the first place that's really tricky. High functioning autistic people have profound needs that are, very different from low functioning autistic people, and unlike them, completely non obvious. With out a label it's difficult to educate people about that.
Upon reflection maybe the term 'hidden autism' would be better.