What term should we use to describe autism?

To be clear, I’m perfectly happy to just say “autism” and “autistic”.  I’m all for identity-first language.  However, I also recognize that some people will want to keep a technical, fancy term around – and if we’re going to have a technical term, we should at least try to make it a good one.

The current convention is, of course, “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”  This language of “disorder” is extremely unhelpful.  Autistic people already have enough mental health challenges without having to deal with being told that we are “disordered,” that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.  Furthermore, academics seem to have a bad habit of accepting this term without ever thinking to question it.  I was once informed that objecting to the term was “social advocacy” and not appropriate in a certain context – the person informing me of this seemed blithely ignorant of the fact that they were, themselves, engaging in social advocacy by working to suppress new perspectives.  There is no divine authority proclaiming that “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is the only one and true correct term for autism; it is a socially constructed term and it happens to be a deeply stigmatizing one.

Moreover, it’s also a term that is quite often factually incorrect, because autistic people’s thinking is far from “disordered.”  We’re different, yes, but what exactly about our thinking is less orderly than the thoughts of neurotypicals?  If anything, aren’t autistic people usually predictable and regular?  Our thoughts are differently ordered, not necessarily disordered.

So “disorder” is out.

The main alternative seems to be “Autism Spectrum Condition.”  I recognize that the term is intended well, as a preferable alternative to “disorder,” but let me say, I am not impressed, for the following reasons:

1. Is the term “condition” really much less stigmatizing than “disorder”? This is still a term with some pretty negative connotations.  Doesn’t it sound like some sort of medical problem, like a “heart condition” or something?
2. The term “condition” implies some degree of impermanence. It is often used to refer to a temporary state.  I can have a “condition,” but I can also go out of that “condition.”  That’s not how autism works – autism is pretty much permanent and pervasive.  One could therefore argue that the term is no more factually correct than the term “disorder.”
3. The term “condition” leaves autism in a position of inferiority to typical development. One of the great triumphs of the autistic advocacy movement has been the creation of the term “neurotypical” – before we identified neurotypicality as a thing, we always just unquestioningly spoke of “normal” or “healthy” people.  The autistic advocacy movement showed that neurotypicality is just one neurotype among many.  When we identify autism as a “condition,” I think we send the message that it is just a deviation from neurotypicality, not an equal and distinct neurotype.

If we want a technical term, we need another one.  And I do have one idea of what it could be.

A while ago, even before I arrived at UC Davis, I heard Peter Mundy – a distinguished faculty member and autism researcher in the School of Education here – use the term “Autism Spectrum Development” in a video recording of a talk.  I immediately fell in love with the term, because it fits all the points on my shopping list.  It elevates autism to the same status as neurotypicality, because “Autism Spectrum Development” sounds just like “Typical Development.”  The term isn’t stigmatizing, it doesn’t denigrate or dehumanize autistic people, and because autism is a neurodevelopmental pattern, calling autism a type of “development” is entirely accurate.

And as an added bonus, for convenience, it lets us keep the abbreviation “ASD.”

What’s not to like?