Managing Autism - A Personal View

Disorder - a state of untidiness and disorganisation, an illness.

Difference - the state or quality of being unlike, not identical or the same.

When we talk about autism we use the word disorder - ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’, or in other words, autism spectrum illness.

Disorder is a commonly used medical term that is used to describe many conditions, so to the medical profession, Autism Spectrum Disorder is quite an appropriate term to use when describing an autistic way of being.

But is this really the right word or description to use?  If a person has autism, are they necessarily ’ill’?

Instead we might find that people who have autism have a ‘quality of being unlike’ people who are commonly thought of as typical.  In other words, they are different.  In fact, when we really think about it carefully, the ‘quality of being unlike’ is something we all have.  Yes, strangely enough, we are all different!

Words are powerful.  The words we use to describe people can be uplifting and empowering, or they can be devastating and disempowering.

So which word is it?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am and is filed under Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger Syndrome. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.