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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 :-)

  • in reply to Dawn

    Yes Autistic neurotype sounds good. I'm opening up this conversation today with the team who do official 'diagnoses' or identifications for children so will raise all these points. To be honest, I cannot believe that someone from another area needs to raise this with them Thanks very much.

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  • in reply to Dawn

    Yes Autistic neurotype sounds good. I'm opening up this conversation today with the team who do official 'diagnoses' or identifications for children so will raise all these points. To be honest, I cannot believe that someone from another area needs to raise this with them Thanks very much.

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