Hi Janna,

This probably won't be too helpful. But you asked... [grin]. Here goes.

1. The consensual prevalence of autism is about 1 in 165. It's not a good idea to get autism information from autism associations or societies (so this should not be encouraged). It's better to say that people are autistic, rather than that people are affected by autism.

2. Mentioning the DSM-IV (which is produced by the American Psychiatric Association, not the American Psychological Association) in this context is probably unnecessary. How about describing autism as a neurodevelopmental disability? The vast majority of neurodevelopmental disabilities (there are hundreds) are not in the DSM-IV.

3. Using "disorder" is something to avoid unless you are obliged to quote a DSM-IV category (e.g., "Autistic Disorder", "Pervasive Developmental Disorder"). There is no DSM-IV "Autism Spectrum Disorder" category. It's better not to use person first language ("people who have an...").

4. This is generally not how I'd describe autism if I wanted to improve the situation for autistics. We've had a bit re describing autism a little ways up-thread, and then there's this http://autismcrisis.blogspot.com/2006/10/whats-autism-anyway.html which may or may not be helpful.

Hi Michelle,

You wrote that "Autism is considered to be "etiological" rather than "idiopathic" when it is associated with a condition for which there is an identifiable cause". I admit that I have not read those references that you have provided (yet)... but it seems in using the term "etiological autism" to describe a situation in which a dual Dx has been given that some sort of causal link is being made - as in the etiology of the person having autism is the fact that they have DS. Is this what is being suggested by the term?

D.

Hi Dave C.,

I'm not sure what I can do except repeat what I've written (with apologies to everyone else).

"Autism is considered to be "etiological" rather than "idiopathic" when it is associated with a condition for which there is an identifiable cause."

You can add to and subtract from that as you wish, and you have, but I'm not going to be too good at explaining your own additions or subtractions. Sorry.

Hi Michelle,

Re /m6379, the pretty good, short description of autism as "a profound difference in the processing and analysis of information" raises important questions; such as what is meant by information, and by processing and analysing it. This morning I was walking in the rain. That is the basic information. Another person in the same situation might have thought about the nature and cause of rain, or the weather pattern of low and high pressure systems which led to it raining at that particular time and place, or about the weather history for the 13th July in that particular place in previous years; but that person would not necessarily be autistic, while an autistic person might just register that it is raining.

Autism is diagnosed by how it presents itself in the behaviour (in the widest sense) of each autistic person.

Michelle,

Your comments were extremely helpful. Thank you for taking the time. I've re-written it, and I may well use these two paragraphs as the opening of my article instead of what I've currently got. I quoted part of your blog post in the first paragraph; if this is not okay, just let me know and I'll change it.

Difficulties in relating to other people are a hallmark of autism, a neurodevelopmental disability that affects how a person learns and experiences the world. The prevalence of autism is now 1 in 165. Odds are, you know someone who has autism, whether you are aware of it or not. Michelle Dawson, an autistic researcher based in Canada, notes that "...the different pattern of strengths and weaknesses characterizing autism results in many difficulties as atypical needs and adaptive but atypical autistic behaviours are at odds with what is considered or expected as 'normal'."

Because autistic behaviours are so different from the expected, autistic people are often treated as though they are unintelligent. They face bullying and other forms of discrimination throughout their lives. The most difficult part may well be the lack of understanding - not simple pity or sympathy - that autistic people face every day. They are treated as though they are defective, and this is simply not true.

From here I can go right into how the Friend 2 Friend program was born (the founder's autistic son told her that he wanted to have friends).

I think most of my article uses 'autistic' instead of person first terminology, except for when I'm using a direct quote from one of the interviews that I did. I always use 'autistic' when I'm talking, of course, but they always seem to use 'person with'. Accuracy and all that. *sigh*

Thanks again!

-Janna

I never considered that PBJI was of the Applied Sarcastic Analysis school of thought before (I hope I don't have to pay any fees to them now!)and re:
/m1777 -Imagine all the Social Stories-TM for autistic teenagers that could be written....'Billy's Sarcastic Comebacks' or 'Susan Learns How to Own Someone' (lol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owned

No no no, Mike, it's 'Susan Learns How to Pwn Someone'. :D

Maybe the 'P' in PBJI stands for 'Pwn'? ;)

-Janna

Edited by author 07-13-2007 03:48 PM
Hi Janna,

I like the new version ( /m6394 ) much better than the previous version ( /m6389 ) but I disagree that "Difficulties in relating to other people are a hallmark of autism". Sorry. "Relating" is a really vague term, and you're implying that non-autistics are great at "relating" to other people. Then who does all that bullying, etc.?

I still object to the use of person-first language ("someone who has autism"). Briefly quoting from something I wrote which is publicly available is fine so long as you provide the source (in this case, a blog post).

Michelle,

Good points. I'll see if I can tweak it a bit more, and I'll be sure to indicate where I'm quoting you from, as well.

I'm going to have a look into the rules about quoting from interviews and see if it's allowable to change some of the language. When I say it's a direct quote, I mean that I taped the interview and I'm transcribing exactly what is on the tape. But I agree that "person with autism" is better replaced by "autistic person", so if it's allowed I will make the change.

Thank you again!

-Janna

Autism studies is what I tutor for Birmingham: as well as two part-time degree courses (which I teach) there is a full time course I believe. Heta Pukki and Jim Sinclair have contributed to course units, (as well as me).

Hi Janna, people should be quoted accurately (I've been quoted inaccurately, and it's not fun...); I was reacting to your own use of person-first language, where you weren't (so far as I can tell) quoting anyone.

For Mike PBJI ( /m6395 ), I haven't really had time to go after those lucrative PBJI royalties, I've been too busy with the controversy over whether Positive Sarcastic Supports is or isn't a truly sarcastic analytic treatment ... Then there's those upstart Verbal Sarcasm interventions [sigh]. I remember when things were simpler...

Re /m6400

I'm going to keep the quote with its exact wording; the main thing I'm going to focus on now (besides keeping my word count down) is making sure that I myself use the correct terminology. I'll double-check (and triple-check) my own use of phrases like "affected by autism" and "child with autism". I'm pretty sure that my own words currently stick to "autistic child" etc. as I do typically use that terminology in my everyday language.

Thank you again for being such a good sounding-board. I hope the article turns out to be a good piece of advocacy.

Last message from me, I hope!

If you have time, I would appreciate input into my closing paragraph. I checked the rest of the article, and I used 'autistic person' all the way through, except for the one quote. So that's good.

Here's the paragraph, with the one before it so you get the context (and you can see the quote):

“It’s not ‘we have to fix the people,’ but ‘we as a society need to be open to differences and be friends,” Val says. Lyndon Parakin, Executive Director of the Autism Calgary Association, agrees. “I like how much this can empower other parents or other caregivers… even the potential of empowering people with autism themselves. We can make an impact on our community.”

That impact is important. As more children are diagnosed with autism, it becomes necessary for society to adjust and begin to accommodate the differences that are a part of being autistic. The Friend 2 Friend Programs are just one very small step towards full acceptance of autistic people as being valuable, contributing members of society, but the resulting changes in attitudes of both children and adults are a sign that it’s a step in the right direction.

Thank you again! I knew you would have good suggestions, Michelle. I'm too close to it to be able to see where I may have messed up, so an outside viewpoint - especially of someone who is so personally invested in the language being used to talk about autism - is invaluable!

Hi Philip,

How brains acquire, process and analyze information (including information from the environment and information in memory) is something that can be studied and measured.

Information can be divided up in various ways. One way is by modality (visual, auditory, tactile, etc., information). Then you can divide visual information in many different ways (e.g., static or dynamic, high or low spatial frequencies, etc.) Cognitive processes can also be divided up in various ways (e.g., perception, attention, memory), and then further divided (e.g., working memory, long-term memory, semantic memory, episodic memory) and so on.

Then you could see if autistics and non-autistics perform the same way in an N-back working memory task (this being a well-established task used to study working memory performance) using letters of the alphabet as stimuli. You'll find that autistics perform the same as non-autistics in this task, but (using fMRI) you'll also find that autistics accomplish this using markedly atypical neural resources (Koshino et al., 2005). So you've come up with one example of autistics apparently behaving typically (no significant differences in performance on the task) coupled with measurably atypical brain activation (autistics are not processing or analyzing information the same way non-autistics are).

Hi Michelle,
Am I right into thinking that in the case of Koshino 2005, we picture the letter (as a drawing) instead of interpreting it (as a letter) which thus makes it easier to do target discrimination ?

Alain (who have been thinking about it for at least 5 month...)