Tomato, Tomahto

I consider myself to be somewhat of an infant when it comes to this parenting a child with autism thing...er, wait, maybe it's supposed to be parenting an autistic child? Many times, in my research and reading, I have come across this internal debate within the special needs community as to what the proper terminology actually is when referring to one who possesses traits of autism. (is this okay to say?)

I must admit, in the beginning, just after receiving the diagnosis, semantics was the least of my concerns.  However, recently (probably because I am reading more blogs, and fewer medically based articles) I have encountered this little head-butting debate in more than one arena, and have actually started to consider the implications and the arguments behind it.  Now, for those of you who are autism parents reading this, I'm sure this little word war is nothing new to you. And though it is also not necessarily new to me either, I recently began paying more attention to this discourse because, well, I WRITE A BLOG!   I began to wonder if between my Facebook posts, my conversations, and my published blog posts,  I have ever really just pissed someone off because of my choice of words when referring to my son's autism, since I basically use both phrases ("has autism" or "is autistic") interchangeably. And believe me, I have read some pretty heated arguments and know that many people feel as strongly and polarized about this topic as they do about our current presidential candidates. I will never know who I may have offended, but I'm curious all the same.

At any rate, here is my take on the subject, which I plan never to discuss again because I find it to be pretty unimportant and insignificant in the grand scheme of things that autism parents already deal with. But here goes....

Here is a (very) basic synopsis of the debate at hand:

Some believe that by saying that someone "is autistic," it defines and labels them as being ONLY that- autistic.  Further, they claim that by describing my son, for example, to someone as "being autistic" rather than as  "having autism,"  my word choice will actually influence the way people perceive and respond to him.  It is suggested that if you place the word "autistic" before the person, that it becomes a label, vs. if you place it after the person, it then becomes merely a trait of that person.  And to be fair, this is an overly-simplified explanation of the debate.  I've read some articles and posts that have gone into much more specific detail about the  implications of how one chooses his or her words when referencing autism. And frankly, these articles and posts practically put me to sleep once my head stopped spinning from trying to decipher exactly what the heck points they were trying to make! You truly need to be an English major just to comprehend the technicalities of some of these arguments.  Kudos to those who have the time to scrutinize the English language to such depths, but you will not find me hovering over a grammar text book to check your work.

Despite the likely never-ending debate, the bottom line to me is this:  It matters not how we interchange these terms.  If you mention the word "autistic" or "autism" to describe someone, whether before or after the person's name or appropriate pro-noun,  I believe that people who are outside of this minority community that has been touched by autism, have already formed (or not) their opinions based on what they have or haven't read,  or have and haven't been exposed to.

If my son has a melt-down in the middle of the grocery store in front of someone who has no clue about autism, and they react by giving me that awful, judgmental "you-suck-as-a-parent-control-your-kid" stare, do you really think that if I walked up to them and said, "Just so you know, he has autism" it would make any difference to them and how they respond to us if I instead said "Just so you know, he is autistic?" I think not.  I mean, if the person is ignorant, the person is ignorant.

As a parallel,  if I share with someone, for example, that my cousin "is diabetic" rather than "has diabetes," I don't think it makes a bit of difference in how someone responds to my cousin either. Their response is based on what they know about the condition, and not how I choose my verbiage.  If one understands what diabetes is, he or she likely isn't going to offer my cousin (who is fictitious, by the way) a huge piece of chocolate cake upon our first visit to their house.  However, if he or she has no clue what diabetes is, that person may very well, to be polite, offer a sugary snack to my cousin, unaware that this food choice may not be something in which my cousin may indulge.    And further,  the fact that I may describe my cousin as "being diabetic" by no means implies that he is diabetic and nothing more.  This line of thought seems absurd to me, because if I use any adjective to describe anyone, (e.g. "He is hilarious") this does not imply that he is not also sensitive, kind, or possibly a complete jerk.  It takes more than one word to define any person.

Thus, I feel it is the same with autism. One word does not define any person, EVER.

More importantly, regardless of which way I choose to share this information about my son and whatever the circumstance,  the fact is that arguing over sentence structure is simply not productive. Why not, instead of debating with others about how to refer to a person with autism, use that opportunity to instead educate someone further about what autism can be like for the child who is struggling, the adult who has overcome, or family who is tirelessly supporting that individual?

Perhaps I will develop a preference for a specific "terminology" as I grow out of my infancy of being an Autism-mommy, as I have actually read that some autistic adults do have their own preferences of semantics (which consequently all vary from person to person....) But for now, I think it is a silly discussion to devote time to, given all that we, in the autism community, have on our plates. (And as such, this will be the only time I ever address this in my blog)

To each his own, and I am certainly not suggesting that people are not entitled to their opinions. My point, however, is that for ME, it makes not a bit of difference in our world, and I will continue to refer to my awesome, funny, and brilliant son as also being "autistic," or as "having autism," depending on how it best fits into my sentence.  And for this, I will not apologize.

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