To ask you how to describe someone's ASD?

[TodaysDate050919]

I'm trying to head off a complaint about a colleague.

If I wanted to make it clear to someone that my colleague has a few problems with ASD, while not specifically mentioning ASD, is there an appropriate way of doing it?

I'm thinking "has a condition which can occasionally cause him to act in unexpected ways". Is that suitable?

You risk the "condition" being misinterpreted as drug or alcohol abuse, or quite a number of other things.

What is your role in this situation? Is the colleague who has ASD aware of your intended course of action? When you say 'has a few problems with ASD', do you mean that they have informed you they have a diagnosis?

Nope. You can't. Sorry. It needs to go through proper channels. If she has a diagnosed disability and has disclosed it then management should take that into account and agree with her what can and can't be said to other colleagues, and plan with her how to manage whatever effects her condition has on other people. But you can't "head off" a complaint if that hasn't happened.

You can say things like "she might not have meant it the way it sounded, sometimes she says things without realising how they come across" or whatever... but no way can you start talking about "conditions".

I have asd.

I don’t think it’s ok to disclose that your colleague has ‘a condition’ of any kind.
Are you the manager? Can you suggest that the issue can be dealt with informally before resorting to formal complaint procedures?

Or has a formal complaint already been made?

Can you say ‘I’ve talked to x and I’m satisfied that there is a reasonable explanation for their behaviour’?
Or can you ask the autistic colleague whether he would like you to disclose his disability to the colleague?

(sorry, not drip-feeding, I didn't anticipate the replies)

There are no 'proper channels'. There's a knob of a boss. Colleague is very new, quite young and doesn't tend to want to let anyone know they have any problem. It would disturb him to know the customer was grumbling and disturb both of us if the boss is involved, that's why I want to head it off.

You can say things like "she might not have meant it the way it sounded, sometimes she says things without realising how they come across" or whatever... but no way can you start talking about "conditions".

Thanks, that sounds sensible.