• Replies 14 replies
  • Subscribers 34 subscribers
  • Views 1680 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Terminology for diagnosis

Tigermum

Hello there

I am a parent of an autistic young person, daughter of an autistic father, sister of two autistic brothers and I work for the NHS as a music therapist, 95% of my clients are autistic. When I see the acronym ASD and hear the phrase autistic spectrum disorder used to diagnose and describe I cannot help feeling that we have moved far beyond referring to it as a disorder and that it could be a derogatory or offensive term/label. I certainly see many strengths in the people I work with and although being autistic can be challenging in the way society is currently set up, I wonder if the word disorder is any where near appropriate. I want to raise this at work to see if we can find better ways of describing autism and naming a diagnosis, but feel that I need to gather some opinions from the autistic community to see how people feel about ASD as a label or diagnosis so that I have some evidence to support my argument. 

In other areas I work in it is referred to as ASC or autistic spectrum condition. Or is simply Autism a more appropriate term to use?

I hope I have not offended anyone in raising this. I am very interested in peoples thoughts around this. 

Many thanks

Parents

  • No offense taken.  In fact, I'm glad the issue is being raised.  It's only when professionals stop seeing autism as a "disorder" that they will stop trying to treat us as though we are defective and change us into neurotypical people - doesn't do us any good.  I'm sick of being told I "suffer with autism" .  No, I "suffer" from ignorance!

    Condition is certainly much better than 'disorder' for me.  Personally, I wonder whether Autistic neurotype, wouldn't be better, just as we refer to blood type.  Some are rare and some are common, but there's no one suggests a rare blood type has "deficits" or is "disordered"

    And yes, in a medical sense I might use the word diagnosis, but 'identification' or 'discovery' is much better.

    Good luck educating your colleagues :-)

Reply

  • No offense taken.  In fact, I'm glad the issue is being raised.  It's only when professionals stop seeing autism as a "disorder" that they will stop trying to treat us as though we are defective and change us into neurotypical people - doesn't do us any good.  I'm sick of being told I "suffer with autism" .  No, I "suffer" from ignorance!

    Condition is certainly much better than 'disorder' for me.  Personally, I wonder whether Autistic neurotype, wouldn't be better, just as we refer to blood type.  Some are rare and some are common, but there's no one suggests a rare blood type has "deficits" or is "disordered"

    And yes, in a medical sense I might use the word diagnosis, but 'identification' or 'discovery' is much better.

    Good luck educating your colleagues :-)

Children