"has autism" or autistic

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I've always called my daughter autistic until someone insisted that I say "my daughter has autism." I, later, found out that the Person First term comes out of a desire for disabled people not to be defined by their disabilities, like, "instead of I'm diabetic, I have diabetes."

But autism, I think, effects who a person is, almost as much as what gender that are, so it's different than other disabilites.

So far, I hear people who are employed by the government always use "has autism" because they're ordered to talk that way and, also, some parents insist on it but I haven't heard people with autism themselves insist on people not saying autistic.

I don't like to make communication harder and it seems that having the word police censor us is a bad thing.

It is a matter of correct grammer...autistic is an adjective whereas Autism reflects a noun.

I've seen,
Autism: "my real child is in there somewhere but the autism is keeping him trapped"
vs.
Autistic: "I'm an autisitc person who accepts who I am."

I know most people don't go by that scale, but it naturally fell into that place for me after a while of observing people's speech and actions.

For the record I say I'm autistic/aspie/whatever. It just has a natural flow. It's too weird to say "I have autism".

I am autistic. If someone's going to be picky over the politically correct way to refer to a group, they should at least go by what that group prefers.

Jenny McCarthy demanded on Oprah that people stop saying autistic. She said it sounds like nails on a chalkboard to parents. With a very public forum like Oprah saying the word autstic is bad, how to we get the word out that autistic is not a bad word?

i hear "has autism" and corelate it to "has cancer", "has diabetes", "has aids."

i hear "is autistic" and corelate it to the person as a whole.

just my lil opinion

I've been corrected for saying "autistic" before. I was told, "Please say people with autism. You don't identify people by their disease. People with leukemia don't want to be caused leukemics."

There are so many objectionable things about that statement, I couldn't begin to respond. I mean, "leukemics" isn't even a word . . .

I prefer "autistic" because autism is an essential part of a person's identity, and it is not an inherently bad thing. It is a way of being, not a disease. However, I would not correct someone for saying "has autism" because it is a matter of opinion and I don't tell people what to think.

I hope that one day, people will start to listen to autistics instead of speaking for us and enforcing the use of terminology supportive of their ideology on our behalf.

It's definitely about identity politics and who controls the language. My son's school actually has that 10 Things Every Kid with Autism Wish You Knew and one of them is "with autism" instead of autistic. My son says, "is autism", which is hysterical.

Having a difference of opinion is one thing but those people that insist on "with autism" or "has autism" always, always bring it up in a condescending way like you just fell off the wagon cart and barely speak English.

This reminds me of an old Bob Newhart episode. He started a support group for fat people and felt so awkward saying fat people and he said, er, people of a heavier persuasion.

Maybe we should call those politically correct people, people with word police disorder.

It's my condition, and I'll say autism, autistic or snipdangwackybooger. It's no one's business but mine.

It's gotten so PC means Plain Crazy. Or Prefers Cooties. Or something clever I can't think of right now.

MysteryFan3~ LOL!! !! !! !! !! .....i think that's the word we should start using~ snipdanwackybooger !