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
