"Person with autism", or "autistic"?

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I am a mom to a wonderful little 3-year-old boy on the spectrum.

Today I was talking with a co-worker and mentioned my son was autistic, and she scolded me and said, "No, your son has autism. Saying he's autistic implies that all he is his disability." I actually felt ashamed for calling him autistic and apologized to her.

Later in the day I googled "person with autism" and actually found quite a few blog posts and tweets from people on the spectrum themselves saying they hated what I learned was called "person first language" because it insinuated that autism was separate from who they were.

So I guess I am confused and can see both sides - yes, people on the spectrum are PEOPLE too, and autism doesn't encompass their full being... and yes, autism is also an inextricable part of who they are.

Those of you on the spectrum, which do you prefer? "Person with autism", or "autistic"? I don't want to be offensive, but I am legitimately confused as to which terminology I should be using...

There's no right or wrong, just use what you want. If you know someone is a stickler for their terminology, just use that terminology around them and go about using the words that feel comfortable for you when you're not around them.

How the F does saying he is autistic means he has a disability but saying he has autism doesn't .

I'm autistic because i HAVE autism

My assessment states that some of the things I do are "more neurological than personality driven". Which, I suppose, essentially means that it's nature rather than nurture. And many of those things that it talks about aren't really good things - I guess that's why it's considered a disorder.

That said, Autism is part of who I am, regardless of whether it's neurological or personality. There's certainly a lot more to me than just my ASD, but to take away the ASD would change who I am. And, while there are many aspects of my life that I wish were easier than they are, I don't want to change who I am.

Based on that, since I do define it as part of who I am, does that mean that I should prefer "Autistic"? Or does the fact that I consider myself to be more than just my ASD mean that I should prefer "Person with Autism"?

I think "autistic person" makes more sense, from a purely conversational standpoint. We don't say "a person with left-handedness," we say "a left-handed person." We don't say "a person with extroversion," we say "an extroverted person." We don't say "a person with athleticism," we say "an athletic person." All of those are characteristics of a person's neurological or physical make up, in the same way autism is a characteristic of mine. Autistic is simply an adjective describing a noun, the person. It's the most efficient way to say it, certainly. Saying "a person with autism" makes no sense to me, perhaps because I try to picture a person sitting next to autism on the sofa. So, for the sake of those of us with exceedingly literal interpretation, I vote for "autistic person."

I couldn't care less about how it is phrased. In my experience that seems to apply to most of us who were diagnosed right away due to severity. It seems to be a thing those with very mild autism and those who aren't autistic harp on, and go on about how autism isn't a disability. The person who scolded you, the mother of an autistic child, saying "No, your son has autism. Saying he's autistic implies that all he is his disability" is out of bounds and full of hot air. I am astonished by such audacity.

Let me get this straight, you’re raising a boy on the spectrum and some random coworker is lecturing you on how you should refer to your son’s autism? If I referred to myself as being autistic and some neurotypical lectured me and said I should refer to myself as a person with autism, I’d tell them to go f**k themselves. And I’m not usually like that. Sorry, but I’m angry on your behalf over that. You just raise that child and you don’t look back when you have to deal with people like that. Don’t pay them any mind.

Having put that aside, I don’t think there’s a preferable way refer to somebody with autism. The truth is that person SORT OF has a point. Not about the disability part. Here’s the way I’d consider it....you could refer to somebody as an Aspie and you are sort of implying they have minor autism (no such thing, but that’s of the implication). “He has high functioning autism” would be the next level. After that would be person with autism, followed by “he’s autistic” and finally perhaps implying the “worst” autism, “that man’s an autistic.”

So I’m basically saying, “an autistic” would probably be the one that the general public would consider the “rudest” because it’s the strongest term to refer to somebody with autism. It’s sort of like referring to a person who is gay as a “queer”. That’s an acceptable term for a gay person, but it’s sort of considered less flattering than “gay”.

Having said that, guess what I want people to refer to me as? I want to be referred to as an autistic. If somebody is curious about my autism and wants to ask me about it, I’d say, “Well, as an autistic I....” The reason why is I’ve decided to embrace my autism and not be ashamed up it. I also want people to know that having autism is a challenge so that even though I’m obviously “high functioning”, I am working extremely hard to achieve some goals that are hard even for a high functioning autistic such as mysel.

When your boy is old enough,he can decide for himself how he’d like people to refer to him and his autism. Let’s hope by the time he’s well into adulthood, people are more accepting of him regardless of what autism is referred to by then.

Sorry for being convoluted, but I hope that make sense. Don’t feel ashamed to say your child has autism, and don’t let his autism limit what he can achieve (within reason).

I prefer “Autistic” or “Autistic person”. My autism and my personality are so fused together it is pointless to try and seperate them.

If a person says “I am Italian” or “I am Jewish” or “I am gay” and they live in the United States it is generally understood that they are American, it is not generally implied that they think of themselves as Italian, Jewish, or gay ONLY. But somehow that assumption is not made with autism, if you say that you are autistic a lot of people assume you are defining yourself completly by your disability. I have gotten corrected a number of times by these well meaning language police telling me how offensive “Autistic” is. First of all doing this type of language correction is rude. Second of all it is offensive that they demand I use “person with autism” because they think they know better than I do what I should consider offensive.

Hopefully when your son is ready to describe himself this language policeing madness will be a thing of the past. Until that time stand your ground.

Personally, I don't care. Much ado about nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-fi ... #Criticism
I've seen one course on disability and education where the students would lose points for using anything but "person with autism." In my opinion whoever decided that should have rearranged the deckchairs on the Titanic instead, as that was much more important, and less cumbersome. Put me down as a "don't care."

My personal preference is to use "autistic", but so long as people behave with mutual respect, I wouldn't ever make a fuss about it, and I'll use other phrases if it makes a sentence easier to understand. My reason for the preference is much as robbrucejr said; linguistics rather than anything idealogical. I find 'person-first' language sounds unnatural and forced to my ear, and the use of "with" seems to imply that there is a possibility of "without", which makes no sense to me for an innate condition.

I like to say 'autistic person' about myself and others. 'With autism' makes it sound like a disease. I like to use the word 'person' to emphasise that we are people more than anything.

I intensely dislike people who feel the need to micromanage people who themselves are autistic or live with someone who is autistic. You are the expert on this, not your colleague.

I would politely ignore her, but hey, I'm no expert on social skills