Calling autistic people "acoustic"

[elliejjtiny]

I was talking to ds3 (aged 14) about a boy in his year who has been bullying ds4 (aged 11) and ds3 described him as "a bit acoustic". I asked him what that meant and he said that's what they call people who have autism as it sounds a bit like autistic.

Is this a thing? Is it an insult? Ds3 has autism himself and one thing he struggles with is he doesn't understand whether things like that are rude or not.

It is rude. He knows the proper name for this boys disability and he is choosing to call it something. There is no reason for that other than they think it’s funny. Having a disability is not funny, he needs to say their actual diagnosis - autism, if he’s referring to it.

Thank you. I thought it was probably rude but I wasn't 100% sure as ds3 will happily refer to himself as being "acoustic" too.

When he says "it's what 'they' call people with autism," does he mean himself and his autistic peers? Or does he mean a completely different set of NT children use it to refer to the autistic children? Because the first is an in-joke and the second would be rude.

Thank you. It's a mixture, one other child has autism, 2 have mental health issues and the rest are NT I think.

My autistic teen DD has mentioned acoustic for autistic being bandied about at school. Definitely has a bullying edge to it

That's the people in his friendship group. I don't know most of the rest of the school but according to ds3 "everyone is doing it". I don't know how true that is though. The school has lots of autistic children. Ds3 tends to get on better with NT children than autistic children because he finds other people stimming difficult but he wouldn't intentionally be mean to them.

“He is autistic” or “he is acoustic” is in any case offensive as I thought we now have to say “person with asd”

And you can’t be a “person with acoustics”.

😆

You can call yourself whatever you want if you are the person with the diagnosis.

Yeah, it’s in the same vein as “David’s a weirdo, bet he’s got the ‘tism” or “David’s mum gets money for him cos he’s au-to-to-tistic”. It’s just a play on the actual term, but all means the same thing.

Not true - lots of autistic people prefer to be described as an autistic person, rather than a person with autism.

It’s a thing online and is rude/an insult.

That's as maybe, but it doesn't mean you can freely use that term to describe or refer to someone else.

@BeNiceWhenItsFinished No. You should always ask first and not presume.

My family will correct people who refer to them as having autism. They are autistic.

The 'tism is a common term used amongst autistics to describe themselves and others. It's a joky, friendly term. Ds recently bought himself a t shirt with it on!

You need to re-read what I wrote.

@BeNiceWhenItsFinished I was agreeing with you. Should have worded it differently.

My dd with asd (she’s 22) calls herself acoustic. It’s a bit of an in joke with herself. I’ve never called her or anyone else with it that though, it’s a bit rude.

my ds also with asd describes himself as having a touch of the tism. Him and his fellow asd ers call themselves that, I do to ds when we’re having a laugh and joke with each other, again not sure I’d say it to anyone else
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People have bandied ‘ass burgers’ about for years. This sounds about the same.

The usual ableist bullshit. It will never go away.