Down Syndrome and language

[Spinosaur]

Hello, don't mean to upset anyone and I know that new situations and discussions bring up terminology and language that is new too but... My DS is my son who has Down Syndrome he is not a down syndrome child. It seems such a little thing but it is important. Thanks everybody. Really don't mean to upset anyone just needed to mention it.

I don't think I have read anyone on here refer to a child as a down syndrome child.

Jim Sinclair wrote a classic piece which bears repeating in part: (copyright Jim Sinclair 1999):

"I am not a "person with autism." I am an autistic person. Why does this distinction matter to me?

1. Saying "person with autism" suggests that the autism can be separated from the person. But this is not the case. I can be separated from things that are not part of me, and I am still be the same person. I am usually a "person with a purple shirt," but I could also be a "person with a blue shirt" one day, and a "person with a yellow shirt" the next day, and I would still be the same person, because my clothing is not part of me. But autism is part of me. Autism is hard-wired into the ways my brain works. I am autistic because I cannot be separated from how my brain works.

2. Saying "person with autism" suggests that even if autism is part of the person, it isn't a very important part. Characteristics that are recognized as central to a person's identity are appropriately stated as adjectives, and may even be used as nouns to describe people: We talk about "male" and "female" people, and even about "men" and "women" and "boys" and "girls," not about "people with maleness" and "people with femaleness." "worker," not "person who has a job." We describe important aspects of people's personalities in terms such as "generous" or "outgoing," not as "person with generosity" or "person with extroversion."

3. Saying "person with autism" suggests that autism is something bad--so bad that is isn't even consistent with being a person. Nobody objects to using adjectives to refer to characteristics of a person that are considered positive or neutral. We talk about left-handed people, not "people with left-handedness," and about athletic or musical people, not about "people with athleticism" or "people with musicality." We might call someone a "blue-eyed person" or a "person with blue eyes," and nobody objects to either descriptor. It is only when someone has decided that the characteristic being referred to is negative that suddenly people want to separate it from the person. ...I accept and value myself the way I am."

For me, that's another point of view, and how I feel about describing myself as an "autistic person" rather than "person with autism", though I try to accommodate the individual wishes of people.