The term NT is really starting to bug me

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I know in the context of this forum, NT is supposed to mean "non Autistic" but it is used so frequently to describe anyone and everyone who was ever abusive or intolerant of people with ASD's that I think it has become unfair. There are so many threads started with a " Why are NT's so insert negative comment here" you'd think the world was divided into 1% autistics and 99% lumbering, ogreish nitwits. It just isn't so. So there.

Seriously. I understand that some people just want to express their frustrations and probably have no place else to do it but thta kind of thinking isn't doing anyone any favors.

I prefer to say people than NTs. It's better that way.

I agree with this sentiment. When discussing things like "X kind of people have generally done Y bad thing to me" it's much more fair and correct to be very precise about who these people are than to make unfounded assumptions about everyone who doesn't have the same neurological makeup as we do.

I don't use the words "NT" or "Aspie" because I don't like the implied meanings that they have taken on. I refer to people as "autistic" or "with autism" or "on the autism spectrum" or "non-autistic." I think it's ridiculous to blame people without autism for the problems that arise from our own disorders. It's US that are deviant from the statistical norm and thus disordered; WE are the weird ones. Accept it, even embrace it, but don't blame everyone else.

yeah, whenever i hear "NT", it just makes me think of the word "Empty"

Actually, I have a different problem and that is the definition itself. All the definition does is describes what something is not. It does not have the characteristics of what this something actually is.

If we are going to use this term can we put characteristics to the word and let's not put what the characteristics aren't.

Let's not say a NT is ~A. Let's instead say an NT is B,C,D, and F. Wouldn't this be better?

Yes, but NT's do these things. I don't see many people saying ALL NT's do.

I prefer saying non-autistic's and it sounds more positive and less offensive if they don't understand what neurotypical means or just people. Although I may have said NT's a few times without intentionally meaning to say it.

Aspies do these things too, by reffering to these people simply as NT's the more easily influenced members of this forum might come under the false impression that ALL NT's do, in fact, behave this way.

Agreed....i'm not wild about the term either.



It's pretty subjective....there's many non-autistic people with mental
disorders who i'd hardly define as "neurotypical".

Since when are a large percentage of autistics intolerant of autistics? This can't really be said about aspies, but it can be said about a lot of NT's.

My problem with the term also is that it implies that everyone who is not specifically designated as autistic is neurotypically alike. The human mind is so much more diverse than that.

But people with mental disorders are neurotypical in the sense that they have a mental condition and not a neurological condition like autism.

I wasn't reffering to negative behaviour towards autistics, just negative behaviour in general. It also stands to reason that there will be more cases of non-autistics harrassing autistics than autistics harrassing autistics because there are simply more non-autistics. To say autistics never pick on eachother is completely unfounded and likely false.

That's not necessarily the case. For example, learning disabilities have a neurological basis and they are
considered mental disorders.


Also...there might be neurological differences in schizophrenics and others even prior to the onset
of symptoms.