Friday, September 18, 2009
An Aspie By Any Other Name...
Judging from the comments to my last post, it seems that I'm not the only one who has a not-entirely-rational aversion to the name "Asperger" and words derived from it--"aspie," "Aspergian," etc. Of course, there are more important reasons for opposing this kind of language--namely, that it creates a hierarchy amongst autistic people while not actually being terribly useful as a descriptive term. But on a more basic, aesthetic level, the words just bug. "Asperger" is, in my opinion, a most unattractive combination of letters and sounds. I say, only half-facetiously, that I might have acknowledged my diagnosis a bit earlier had Hans Asperger been blessed with a more pleasing, less harsh name. With all apologies to Shakespeare, an autistic person by another name does not sound as sweet.
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9 comments:
Then you won't like NBC's new sitcom, "Community", starring Chevy Chase. Someone mentioned "Assburgers", another said, "Asperger's is a serious disease". Another said, "If it was a serious disease, they should call it "meningitis".
Not promising, at all.
I really like the point that this post makes. "Aspie" is more preferable to say than "people with Asperger's syndrome," but in getting caught up in going a small step higher, we forget just how intolerant it really is. It is for similar reasons that I object to referrring to any autistic person as "low-functioning" or "high-functioning." Autistic people are autistic people, period. And referring to an autistic person as high or low functioning just perpetuates the ugly hierarchy idea and puts those in the "lower" category of being left as they were before the concept of neurodiversity ever came up-ignored and deprived of their rights. I never before thought of the word "aspie" as having the same effect.
Clay: Yeah, I heard about that, and it sounds pretty bad. "Disease"? Uh, no.
Sadderbutwisergirl: After having witnessed the exclusion which self-ID'd "aspies" show towards other autistics sometimes, I don't want to be a part of that. My aesthetic opposition to the word is just the icing on the cake. :) I do, however, sometimes refer to myself as an "Asperger's autistic"--following the lead of Ari Ne'eman and other neurodiversity leaders--simply to acknowledge the fact of my diagnosis without, I hope, invoking aspie supremacism.
@Sarah: I also have this story of how an old teacher of mine showed that she thought that Asperger's was not autism. She asked if I was Asperger's and I said that I was identified as being autistic when I was 2 1/2 years old. She said that I was "too smart and too well-adjusted" to "have autism" and therefore, I must "be Asperger's." She also said that not wanting a cure was fine for people like me, but asked, "What about those that wear diapers and stare at ceiling fans all the time? Don't they need a cure?" If we're going to preach the concept of neurodiversity and not needing a cure, we might as well get rid of all of the hierarchical terms of "Aspergers," "aspies," and "functioning" (either high or low) altogether so that people can't misunderstand our message as only applying to those in the higher castes of autism. But that's just me.
I (and one other person I know) used to wish that my diagnosis was Asperger's because 'aspie' sounded cooler than 'autie'. (Not because of the actual meaning of the word, but because it sounded like an aspen tree or something.)
Of course that was before there was a lot of aspie-supremacy around (Asperger's had only existed as a diagnosis for 5 years in my country), so I didn't have the more current associations those words tend to evoke.
Amanda, I've had similar thoughts about "aspie" and "autie" --- I like them both, and like that there are cute, quasi-joking terms for different types within autism, but "aspie" rolls off my tongue a lot easier than "autie" does.
I've always used "autistic" to talk about myself, mostly because I was talking mostly to people who'd never heard of Asperger's, or PDD-NOS, but had heard a little bit about autism, and I figured they were all similar enough that I could just use "autism" as a catchall term.
(Of course, lately, seeing the Aspie-supremacist attitudes Amanda, Sarah and SBWG mention has led me to keep using "autistic" generically specifically to make the point that I think we're all more alike than different).
Of course, if I know about someone having the label of Asperger's syndrome, that can kind of put you between a rock and a hard place in terms of respectful language. Do you use the term aspie and run the risk of undermining all your beliefs in neurotolerance or do you use an alternative and risk having people chew you out (Odyssey pun definitely intended)? I personally say that they have a label of Asperger's syndrome and say that Asperger's syndrome is a form of autism and refer to the person as autistic because they're on the autism spectrum, so why muddy things up.
I'd say I think we are more alike than different. In fact a have a.... well let's be blunt: A half baked, not totally hypothesis on "functioning"
My thought was.... maybe "low functioning" autistics are much like "high functioning" autistics that we all have difficulty adjusting to NT thought processes and therefore learning the same way as Nuertotypicals.
Then I sorted the difference as the high functioning types can learn normally or quickly autisticly (way of thinking and such) and moderately in a NT way. Whereas low functioning autistics might learn normal autisticly and not at all or very slowly Nuerotypically.
Now this may still sound like something of a gap between the two groups. Though I'd have to say there is some difference but it doesn't make an Aspie BETTER than someone who is "low functioning" in fact it means that we should be more responsible and help out fellow autistics that may be about to be taught vastly better by other autistics.
After all I daresay your mother is better at teaching you how to be a woman and your father is better at teaching you how to be a man. As the other is missing an important part of understand that they cannot reach.
But as said this theory(really more of a hypothesis but that's a clunky word, kind of like Austrian/German names heh) is terribly unproven and is just following my internal mental logic and may be extremely wrong.
But even if we can't teach other autistics better, I'd at least say we can understand what they are going through better and give them proper sympathy which may help in some way as well.
I generally refer to my son, husband, brothers, nephew, and sister in law as having/ being on the "autism spectrum" (when appropriate to do so- I don't just bring it up... LOL) I like that better than any of the others and especially when I got the "Oh, but he's an Aspie- so that's not too bad..." about my son. Really? It's like the sniffles? I can just leave him alone and he'll be okay? UGH. I hope y'all think this is an okay way to do it. I respect other auties' opinions more than the celebrity of the week... LOL ;)
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