The phasing out of the term Asperger's.

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I don't know if this is a world wide thing and I don't even know if it will work but, where I live, there's an active attempt going on to make the word Asperger's unfashionable and phase out it's use.

While I understand that, as it turns out, Hans Asperger wasn't exactly a nice person(!) and people, understandably, want to dissociate Autism from his name, I feel the term Asperger's did seem point to a very specific range of points on the autistic spectrum.
The range that I happen to fit within. You see, I've often felt that ASD is a bit too generalised and vague a term.

When talking to NTs about my autism I often find that if I say "I'm autistic" they don't get it because I am verbal try to be socially active. When I say "I'm on the spectrum", on the rare occasions that they even know what that means, they doubt me because, for example, I can make eye contact (only I know how uncomfortable for me it is because I've had 30+ years of practice). I know it's their ignorance coming into play but they just don't think I "act like" I'm on the spectrum. (Well saying they've never had to live with me..! ) but when I say "I have Asperger's", most of them seem to get that.

Am I the only one, there for, that thinks if we are going to phase out Asperger's then we should find an alternative word first? A universally accepted and recognised word?

I was vehemently against the subsuming of Aspergers into the Autism Spectrum Disorder. It was based on the FEELING that Autism was overdiagnosed and the introduction of the Aspergers diagnosis was to blame. The other reason was that the Aspergers was being inconsistently diagnosed because it was too broad a label. If it was too broad how in the hell did subsuming it into an even broader ASD diagnosis solve that problem? For me, a person diagnosed in his 50s who finally had an explanation other than character flaws it felt like they were telling me and so many other Aspies you were never autistic just lazy and weird. Since it has been revealed that Hans Asperger was complicit in the Nazi eugenics programs my feeling is that getting rid of the Aspergers diagnosis was the right thing done for the wrong reasons.

There should be subcategories of autism that are more precise than the level of severity. I would favor using the most prominent or inhibiting traits in the individual autistic such as "sensory sensitive TOM(theory of mind) challenged autism".

I understand it, I mean I get it...but I kind of like the sound of the label "Aspie". It has a nice ring to it, IMO.

"Autie" sounds like some kind of automobile.

there's always "saktra"

Yo can use whatever terms you like to describe yourself.

I know it's not, but it just feels like a sick joke. Take a group of people that can be very sensitive to changes in routine and can be very logical and "black and white" in their thinking (me!) and then pull the rug out from under them by eliminating Aspergers as a diagnosis....

So is this gonna affect anything other than the superficial titles?

The diagnosis of aspergers is still happening in Britain, or it was 4 years when I got both in writing "A.S.D., aspergers type". It's still in the ICD 10 to the best of my knowledge.

When fashions change it might become labelled some kind of personality disorder.

The phasing out of the word aspergers, and particularly the word aspie, won't be happening for me and mine in my very restricted world.

The sudden appearance of the A.S.D. umbrella term in the DSM concerned me in case people with PDDNOS were being excluded, plus worrried about a future trend that could mean aspies being classified as lazy weirdoes who need to be shouted at.

I don't consider myself a lazy weirdo. I work very hard when I'm interested in something. If I'm not interested in something, than I could be construed as being a lazy weirdo.