Autistics and 'On The Spectrum'

Why Autistics Reject "On the Spectrum"

"On the spectrum" is not a made-up useless anti-science functioning label of the type so loathed by autistics as damaging.

But ... it is the <Column Heading> under which a vast array of really harmful functioning labels sit according to common usage.

If you ask "What does this Spectrum include?" you will likely hear a vomiting forth of functioning labels in quick order: catastrophic, catatonic, profound, severe, injurious, serious, deep, low-functioning, high-functioning, medium, HFA, aspergers, atypical, mild, light, spicy, touch of ... autism, etc.

'On the Spectrum' is also the 'issue-fudging' product of a private profit-making company (the APA) for use in their for-profit DMS (a billing manual) to officialise a way of making money for non-autistics, out of us.

Autistic objections to "On The Spectrum" begin with that most excellent question "Why are you using that?". "Autistic", a nominalized-by-autistics adjective, is just fine for English, and translations of "Autist" are fine for other languages who do not have a satisfactory word, term, or phrase of their own.

Other objections, not in any order of gravity, might include:

- IT MISLEADS: its use leads to poor or worse attitudes and outcomes

- IT IS NOT OURS: it is a phrase manufactured in a backroom by non-autistics for their goals of division, profit, defect-stigmatisation

- ITS ORIGIN: it is originally and often adjacent to the word "disorder" as in "ASD" or "Autism Spectrum Disorder" and is therefore presumptive and deficit-based

- IT IS MISUSED: it is generally misunderstood by those who are mentally depicting instead a <gradient>

- IT MISLOCATES US: Autism is in us, is us, and we are not "on" something, nor is autism a removable external thing that stretches from one place to another, colourfully

- IT IS EMPTY: it conveys no useful or usable information such as 'autistic not-speaking' or 'autistic with dyspraxia' do for example

- IT BLURS: it amplifies an unhealthy sense of all being the same, homogeneity, against the theme of divergent AND equal that autistics strive to promote

- IT IS A NON-IDENTITY: it speaks uselessly regarding assortment and not as needed direct to identity

- IT IS SLUR-LIKE: it is increasingly being used as a slur suggesting awkwardness and mannerism, and indeed lack of agency, that can be attributed to other issues a non-autistic might have (esp. in the political and online communities)

- IT IS A DOG-WHISTLE: use as a pejorative is very challenging to seek justice in respect of

- IT IS IMPERSONAL: Autistics are people, and autism is singular - one - not a continuum, comparison-grouping, catchall, genus, or linear scale.

NOTE:

There are connected, valid, but completely different uses of the word 'spectrum' within the autistic world, and a commendable example of such is depicted here from a Neuroclastic excerpt.

~ ʎllɐǝɹƃ uɥoɾ

https://www.facebook.com/autisticnewsfeed

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A colour spectrum from deepest violet to darkest red is headed "An example of a useful use of "spectrum" in relation to being Autistic, and under it appears categories such as Pragmatic Language, Social Awareness, Monotropic Mindset, Information Processing, Sensory Processing, Repetitive Behaviours, Neuro-Motor Differences