myautisticpov:

neurodiversitysci:

elevine26:

“On the spectrum”

Why do people use this phrase to describe autistics? Is it because they are trying to avoid the word “autism” like it is a slur?

The term “on the spectrum” itself is harmful to the connotation of autistic individuals. Personally, I do not have anything against the word “spectrum” itself, but its connotation. Many associate the word “spectrum” as something linear, when in reality, the word simply implies that there is a variety. Because many associate a “spectrum” with being linear, they begin to measure autism by the quantity of one trait only.

Typically, misled individuals will measure autistics by how verbal they are. And since verbility itself is a linear spectrum, people begin labeling nonverbal autistics as “low functioning” or “on the higher end of the spectrum” and vise versa. This makes people forget that there is so much more to autism than verbility, and that is harmful to autistics.

In summary, the term itself isn’t harmful, but the connotation of it is.

I get what you’re saying.

Personally, I use “on the spectrum” to avoid the issue of whether to say “autistic” or “person with autism” if I don’t know the person’s preference. Mainly, I use it with non-autistic people who expect “person first language” when I don’t feel like explaining why I default to “autistic person.” 

In many of these cases, I’m talking to people who already understand that autism is more like a color wheel than a linear spectrum. And if they don’t understand that, I find that well worth taking the time and energy to explain.

(I’m in a clinical program talking to people who’ve all had at least some experience interacting with autistic people, but have gotten some counter-productive training that everyone prefers person-first language. So that’s why my audience has this weird distribution of knowledge).

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Tangent: I think it’s also worth teaching people that language isn’t a linear spectrum, either! 😉 For example, you can divide language into:

• Receptive (ability to understand) vs. expressive (ability to say/write/sign/etc.)
• Form (accurate grammar and sentence structure) vs. content (meaning) vs. usage (understanding your audience and speaking in the correct way given the social situation).

And then there’s the fact that a person’s ability to, for example, say understandable sentences depends on their cognitive load. (How much are they trying to think about or pay attention to at once?)  I’ve seen people who can tell a well-structured story clearly and grammatically when they’re re-telling a familiar story or using a set of pictures as a cue. But when they have to hold on to the story in their heads while translating it into language, what comes out of their mouths is a mess. I see that even more with writing. So, “more verbal” vs. “less verbal” isn’t really a thing.

Yeah, it also makes it clear that you’re talking about everyone under the autism umbrella. This was more important before Asperger’s was phased out as a diagnosis, but that has only happened in the past few years, and not everyone is up to date on the changing terminology (which is not helped by, like, SBC randomly being like “actually I think Autism Spectrum Condition sounds less stigmatising” and shit like that). Saying “on the spectrum” seems to have become the way for academics (mostly where I’ve seen this use) to make it clear that they’re referring to everyone. Especially if not all of your research participants actually use the term “autistic” to self-identify. I use it anyway with a terminology note, but I can see why allistic academics might find “on the spectrum” (or “on the AS”, which I love because it sound like bad 90s slang) to be a safer term.

Also, just a quick point: the Asperger dx was only phased out under the US-based DSM-5, not ICD-10 as used in a lot of the rest of the world. It’s still very much in common use where I am (page dated Sept. 2018), making the umbrella terminology more useful.

Apparently released earlier this year:

The latest draft of the manual, dubbed ICD-11, collapses autism, Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) into a single diagnosis of ‘autism spectrum disorder.’

Those changes will no doubt take a while to filter down. I wouldn’t necessarily expect that type of umbrella usage to decrease anyway, especially with it built into the official labels.