What do you think - 'autistic child' or a child 'with autism'?

[everynameistaken]

Not posted for a while. But just asking this as I sometimes come accross this at work. I prefer to say thay my DS has autism rather than DS is autistic.

Taking over some work from a colleague and all over the paperwork is says 3 autistic children and it kind of gets my back up a bit. I want to start as I mean to go on and say 3 children with autistic spectrum disorder.

Without sounding too AIBU, am I being unreasonable??

Am I overthinking this? Is it just me it upsets?

When research on autism started and all those stereotypes were set, the attitude to disability was quite medieval. The law evolved, but did the stereotype? What is the professionals' concept of ASD?

[ not digging at anyone]

Why in some professional circles the terminology is described as compassionate?

[this is trying to decrease the tension, not to target anyone]

I don't think and didn't say that you don't accept your child if you dislike "my autistic dc" as a descriptor. Of course not.

First, how this description would resonate will depend on the context of a particular sentence.

But I would like to go back to the idea of wide and free use of the word 'autistic'.

I do think that if one dislike the descriptor autistic, one don't challenge sufficiently the association of the descriptor with the baggage it carries. The stereotype and professionals' concept of autism need broader debate. The baggage is in people's attitudes and no matter how you describe DS, if people believe they should be "compassionate", they will be. The more you say autistic, the more often people will have to challenge their own beliefs about the way to treat DS. It is the notion of autistic meaning less than a wholesome human being that one need to reject, not the word and not whether your DS falls under the description or is just clever.

Quite frankly ds' life is hard enough.

I will use the term, and even the words that best share my understanding of ds, to the person receiving my communication in order for him to have the least difficult path. If that means denying autism at all at times, so be it, and, so WAS it when I secretly put him in a non-state nursery who was willing to work with us but couldn't do if they knew he had a dx or statement as they would have been obliged to contact the LA. In that place he had 'communication difficulties'.

I have asked DS1 and yet again feel differently and a bit of a shit mum. as a parent I do not like to use high/low and my SW believes I am in denial as I will not call DS2 severe. DS1 has had his diagnosis of autism removed, but hid childhood went through some very bad times and primary was a car crash. asking him which words he preferred and without prompt anything other than autistic (aspie, hfa, asd and even autism he would prefer) he associates autistic as a snide reasoning to his differences or to exclude and was used by peers to bully. This comment hurts, but did not want the same dx as his non verbal, special school brother, he loves his brother and he is so like his brother in so many ways but he associates autistic with his difficulties and not his own, whereas he sees ASD as explaining the importance of the word spectrum and the differences and challenges faced.

It's about portraying g ds to another person using language THEY understand and language that will give them appropriate expectations, and ds the best chance at being accepted.

The education surrounding stereotypes and the semantics of terminology is another issue, and, though important, won't be done at my ds' expense.

"reclaim the word autistic" also has baggage

Certainly I don?t want to give it away for others to claim what my DS is and is not. One has more control of the word if one uses it rather than if one's shies away from it.

Going back to the example with the gays, they did manage to change the culture by consistently putting the moose on the table.

i am with you AP

It's not LAW zzzzz but Herts have such a tight grip over the independent nurseries, as they give them funding. Also I was worried that the nursery woukdn't accept him as his statement named another placement. It also named Aweekly SALT, OT, Autism Outreach and a whole bunch of other stuff and I knew the nursery wouldn't want outsiders traipsing in every 5 mins.

Finally, the nursery would refuse on the basis that I must be a complete disaster for them, puting a child with so much professional involvement into their setting and then refusing those professionals.

Polter, i didn't mean to be personal, freinds?

In order to keep the placement a secret we had to pay for the 15 hours and not get the funding. He was actually reception age when there, but not yet 5, and had a named primary on his statement. We also paid for his 1:1. We used the money from our sold house.

There were other children his year group there who hadn't got their prefered school and were on waiting lists and some who were waiting for placements.

He's already done a year in state nursery and been utterly failed educationally, though tbf they did care and tried.

HisMum your post at 8:03am was very interesting.

googlyeyes, thanks for your reply and yes, that makes perfect sense. I too don't like the idea of a spokesperson, I think all views/opinions should be considered.

The poor nursey though, when I eventually was forced to come clean and tell them not only did he have a dx, but a statement too.

The HT was [shocked] but only until the LA EP and SALT went in a week later. Then she called me in for coffee and told be she couldn't believe the picture they painted of me and of ds, that she just didn't recognise either of us in their rantings, that we were a delight to have and she understand why we did what we did.

It would be nice if we could arrive at some sort of agreement as to how it is best to describe someone who has autism. I can see that it would not be possible to agree 100% but it would be helpful for me (and others) to get a general consensus.

??????????

My 'vote' would be mostly to use child who has autism but I think child with autism, child is autistic or Autistic child are not wrong either??