/sarcasm: A way of implying that a post is sarcastic as a way of helping out people who have trouble understanding and spotting sarcasm.
#actuallyautistic: A tag here on tumblr where autistic people can talk about things related to being autistic.
AAC: AAC stands for “Augmentative and alternative communication” and it’s a term for ways of communicating that doesn’t include verbal speech. Since many autistic people have trouble with verbal speech, we may need AAC to communicate. Common methods of AAC are sign language, letter boards, the Rapid Prompting Method, picture boards and text-to-speech. (If you want to learn more about the different kinds of AAC, click here to watch an informative video.)
ABA: ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis and it is the most common “therapy” for autistic children. It is based on a system of punishments and rewards (do as the therapist say and you get a treat or a break, disobey and you get punished.) It can be compared to old school dog-training but where a dog-trainer usually respects their dogs limits, many autistic children are being forced through 40 hours of ABA a week. The goal of ABA is to make autistic children “indistinguishable from their peers.” This means that the goal is to train, reward and punish autistic children into hiding their autistic traits regardless of the consequences that doing so will have for their mental health and their general well-being. ABA therapists sees “looking an acting in obviously autistic ways” as inherently bad and “passing as neurotypical” as inherently good - so they punish the autistic kids for being themselves in ways that aren’t hurting anyone and reward and praise them when they repress themselves and their autistic traits. Being met with the attitude that your natural self is bad and deserves to get punished really hurts your mental health, and many autistic children who are being put through ABA later develops PTSD. (If you want to read more about ABA and why it’s problematic, click here to find a masterpost on the topic.)
Ableism: Ableism is a term for the discrimination and systemic oppression disabled people face in our society just like racism is a term for the systemic discrimination and oppression that people of color face in our society.
Affective empathy vs cognitive empathy: Cognitive empathy is the ability to read and comprehend people’s emotions from their body language, facial expressions, etc. It’s the ability to look at the non-verbal cues in a persons behavior and get to the conclusion that said person is sad or angry or shy or excited and then act accordingly. Affective empathy is the ability to be emotionally affected by other people’s emotional state. That could mean feeling happy for you friend when she’s achieved something she has worked for in a long while or feeling sad and guilty when you discover that you’ve said or done something that hurt someone else deeply. People often mix them up or simply talk about “empathy” but it’s important to differ between them since it’s possible and not uncommon to have trouble with either affective or cognitive empathy and not the other. Autistic people have trouble with cognitive empathy but we usually have normal to high amounts of affective empathy.
Allistic: A person who isn’t autistic. (Unlike a neurotypical, an allistic person may have other psychiatric diagnoses.)
Aspergers Syndrome: Aspergers is an outdated term for autistic people who speak before the age of three years old. Earlier, Autistic Disorder and Aspergers Syndrome was two different diagnoses - as in, the autistic people who spoke before the age of three and had a normal to an above average IQ were diagnosed with Aspergers, and the autistic people who didn’t were diagnosed with Autistic Disorder. Today, the two diagnoses has been combined under “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
Aspie: Slang for “Aspergers.”
Aspie supremacists: Autistic people diagnosed with Aspergers who find pride in seeing themselves as “high-functioning” and who look down on autistic people who are more visibly autistic/need more help in their everyday life. They often think that some autistic traits are good or even advantages but that autistic people who are more visibly autistic/can’t fit into society should be cured.
Autism: Autism is a developmental disability which affects about 1% of the global population. Autism affects every aspect of how someone sees, interacts with and experiences the world and it’s not something that you can grow out of or cure. (Click here for an introduction to autism and the different aspects of being autistic.)
Autistic cousins: People who have psychiatric disabilities which have many overlapping traits with autism - one example is people with ADHD.
Autism Speaks (AS): Autism Speaks is a big organization which claims to be a charity working to help and support autistic people - but they do more harm than good. Many of their views, campaigns and acts have been deeply problematic and very harmful and the majority of autistic people despise them. Click here to learn more about the many shitty things Autism Speaks has said and done.
Burnout: Autistic burnout happens when an autistic person has put so much effort and energy into not seeming autistic that they gradually lose the ability to hide the fact that they’re autistic - they run out of steam, so to say. They may lose skills and abilities that they used to have, they may go nonverbal, and they may have more meltdowns/shutdowns. Many autistic people who were put through ABA “therapy” and thus were trained to hide their autism from early childhood later go through autistic burnout when their brain and body no longer has the energy keep up the act. To avoid autistic burnout, make sure to give yourself some time and space to be your natural autistic self. (If you want to learn more about autistic burnout, click here to watch an informative video.)
Central Auditory Processing Disorder: People with auditory processing disorder have trouble processing verbal speech - their ears work fine, but their brains don’t manage to process what is being said. This means that while they technically hear the words that are being spoken, they may not understand them and they will thus simply hear incomprehensible sounds. (If you want to learn more about Central Auditory Processing Disorder, click here to watch an informative video.)
Cureism/Cure Culture: A supporter of cureism/cure culture thinks that autism should be cured - that the individual autistic person should be fixed so that they fit into our current society. People who oppose cureism think that we should instead change society so that there’s room for autistic people.
Disability: A disabled person is someone whose brain or body can’t do everything that a brain/body in our society is expected to do. (Click here for an informative video on how autism is a disability.)
Dyspraxia: Dyspraxia is a condition affecting physical co-ordination and movement that causes a person to perform less well than expected for their age in daily activities. Dyspraxic people may have trouble with things like tying their shoelaces and getting around without bumping into things - they’re usually very clumsy and bad at tasks which requires a lot of coordination. Many autistic people are dyspraxic.
Echolalia: Echolalia is a form of stimming where you repeat words and sentences because you like the way they sound, because it calms you, or because you like the repetition and sensory input that it provides.
Executive dysfunction (EF): Executive functioning is what allows us to go from thinking about or wanting to do something to actually doing it, it’s what makes us able to keep the different steps required to complete a task straight in our heads and it’s what makes us able to plan and focus on different tasks. Autistic people often have trouble with executive functioning which makes many everyday tasks that most people can just do without thinking twice about it really hard. Imagine that you want to do laundry but your brain doesn’t automatically come up with the steps required to complete the task - take the laundry basket to the washing machine, open the washing machine, put clothes into the washing machine, add soap, etc - instead you’re just standing there, knowing that you somehow have to go from dirty laundry to clean clothes without knowing how to go about it. This is a problem for many autistic people which makes many everyday tasks hard or impossible to do without help. We may need someone to prompt us to do what we need to do or we may need someone to talk us through the steps or we may need visual or written instructions which illustrate the steps required to complete a certain task. Executive dysfunction is the main reason why many autistic people have trouble with basic, everyday tasks that most people their age can easily do without help. (If you want to learn more about executive dysfunction, click here to watch an informative video.)
Functioning labels: Functioning labels means separating autistic people into rigid categories of “high-functioning” and “low functioning” or “mild” and “severe.” Functioning labels to more harm than good, not just because they aren’t able to give you an accurate impression of how much support an autistic person needs - but because they’re instead mainly used to either silence or invalidate autistic people. Autistic people who speak up about the issues concerning them are labelled “high-functioning” to invalidate what they have to say as being inaccurate and irrelevant for other autistic people and so-called “low-functioning” autistic people are being silenced and spoken over because they are written off as too ‘low-functioning’ to have nuanced, relevant opinions or even communicate at all. Instead oi calling autistic people high- or low functioning, mention the specific ability/lack of ability that you’re referring to - if they’re nonverbal, say that instead of calling them low-functioning and if they’re able to work a normal job, say that instead of calling them high-functioning. (If you want to learn more about functioning labels and why they’re problematic, click here to find a masterpost on the topic.)
Happy flapping: A form of stimming which includes flapping the hands or arms to express happiness - an expression of happiness which is common in autistic people.
Hyperfocus: Being able to focus so much on something that you forget everything else around you - you may forget to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom and you may not notice what goes on around you because your brain is so focused on what you’re doing.. Autistic people often hyperfocus on their special interests.
Infodumping: Infodumping means dumping a lot of information on someone about a topic that you know a lot about. Autistic people often infodump about their special interests.
Meltdowns/Shutdowns: Shutdowns and meltdowns are both responses to extreme distress - they’re often caused by unpleasant, overwhelming sensory input that the autistic person in question is unable to escape, but they can also be caused by strong negative emotions. A meltdown is an outward reaction to said distress where a shutdown is an inwards reaction. An autistic person having a meltdown is a person who has reached a point where they are no longer in control of their own body - they’re experiencing and flight or fight response, so to say. An autistic person may scream, lash out, cry, smash things and run away during a meltdown. Shutdowns are another possible respons to a similar situation - during those, the autistic person may become unresponsive, locked in place, unable to talk, etc. You should never get mad at autistic people or hold them responsible for having meltdowns and shutdowns - they’ve reached a place where they’re so distressed that they’re losing control of themselves and instead of distressing them further, you should help them escape or resolve what’s causing the distress - after you have given them plenty of time to calm down and recover, that is. (Click here to learn more about shutdowns and click here to learn more about meltdowns.)
Neuroatypical: Someone who has one of more psychiatric diagnoses - someone whose brain/neurology is different from most peoples. .
Neurodivergent: Someone who has one or more psychiatric diagnoses - someone whose brain/neurology is different from most peoples.
Neurodiversity: Supporters of the neurodiversity movement think that we should stop seeing people whose brains work differently from the norm as “wrong” and “defective” and that we should instead see them as “different - not less”. Instead of seeing neurotypical brains as “good” and neurodivergent brains as “bad” we should instead accept and celebrate the big diversity in how human brains work and make sure that our society is open to and inclusive of all kinds of brains. (If you want to learn more about Neurodiversity, click here to watch an informative video.)
Neurotypical: A person who doesn’t have any psychiatric diagnoses - someone whose brain/neurology is “typical.”
Nonverbal: Nonverbal means “unable to speak verbally.” Many autistic people have trouble with verbal speech - often we don’t think in words/have trouble thinking in words, at other points executive dysfunction (in this case: how to go from thinking a sentence to actually saying it out loud) gets in our way. Some autistic people are nonverbal all the time and never learn how to speak verbally, other autistic people may go nonverbal when they’re stressed, upset or tired but are otherwise able to speak.
Passing: If you pass as neurotypical, nobody can tell that you have a psychiatric diagnosis just by looking at/interacting with you. For most autistic people passing takes a lot of effort and we need breaks were we get to be our authentic autistic selves. (If you want to learn more about passing as neurotypical, click here to watch an informative video.)
Pressure stimming: A form of stimming which consists of applying pressure to different parts of your body. You can pressure stim with tight hugs, weighted pads/blankets, by squeezing into tight places, by having someone lie on you, by sitting on your legs/feet and in many other ways.
Professional diagnosis vs self-diagnosis: A professionally diagnosis is made by a psychiatrist. A self-diagnosis is made by yourself after months or years of research into the different aspects of the diagnosis that you think might fit your symptoms.
Scripting: Scripting means preparing what to say before saying it, either by writing it down or by repeating it to yourself. Many autistic people use scripting because we can have trouble with putting our thoughts into words and because we thus often need some time to figure out exactly what to say and how to say it. (If you want to learn more about scripting, click here to watch an informative video.)
Sensory hell: An unpleasant sensory situation. Many autistic people might for example find a room with a lot of rowdy, smelly, shouting people and blinking, fluorescent lights to be sensory hell.
Sensory overload: Autistic people and people with Sensory Processing Disorder sometimes experience sensory overload - that means that one or more of their senses become so overloaded that they lose the ability to focus and function. Sensory overload can be caused by any kind of sensory input - loud sounds, bright/blinking lights, strong smells, spicy food, touch - and if the autistic person doesn’t manage to get away from what’s overloading them, it may lead to a meltdown or a shutdown.
Sensory Processing Disorder: Sensory Processing Disorder is a part of being autistic, but it can also exist independently of autism. People with sensory processing disorder are either over- or under-sensitive to different sensory input. People who are over-sensitive (hypersensitive) may have trouble tolerating sensory input that most people can easily tolerate, ignore or block out and they may be really stressed out by and upset about things like loud sounds, strong smells, particular tastes, being touched and bright lights. People who are under-sensitive (hyposensitive) may seek out loud music, blinking lights, bright colors, physical touch, spicy food, strong smells and activities which provide physical activity and deep pressure to get their need for sensory input met. It’s common for our sensitivity to fluctuate - a sensory input which causes pain on a bad day may be fun on a good day. (If you want to learn more about Sensory Processing Disorder, click here to watch an informative video.)
The Social Model of Disability vs The Medical Model of Disability: The Social and the Medical Model of Disability is two different ways of seeing disability in relation to our society. Supporters of the Medical Model of Disability sees disability as an individual fault/responsibility - as in, it’s up to the individual disabled person to find accommodations or conform and thus become a part of society. They see the solution to disability as finding a way to cure disabled people so that they can fit into our current society. Supporters of the Social Model of Disability sees disability and the inclusion of disabled people as the responsibility of a society - as in, it’s up to all of us to make sure that disabled people get the accommodations they need. They see the solution to disability, not in finding a cure for individual disabilities, but in making sure that our society becomes accessible to everyone, regardless of disability.
Speccing: Engaging with your special interest.
Special interests (SI): Many autistic people have a topic or a thing that they’re deeply, passionately interested in. Some autistic people compare having a special interest to being in love - it’s what your mind drifts to when there’s nothing else to occupy it, it’s the only thing you want to talk about, it’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning and it’s the last thing you think of before you fall asleep. This intense level of interest and passion often allows autistic people to excel in their areas of interest even when they may have trouble with basic everyday tasks. Some autistic people have special interests that lasts a life time, other people experience that their special interests change every couple years or maybe every couple months - or in some cases, every couple weeks. Some autistic people have one special interest at a time, other autistic people have many special interests. (If you want to learn more about special interests, click here to watch an informative video.)
Stim toy: A toy made for stimming/fidgeting. It can be something you can play with in your hands, something you can you can chew on, something you can touch/click/wring or spin. You can check out many different stim toys on www.stimtastic.co.
Stimming: Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior, meaning a behavior which is meant to stimulate one of your senses. Some common stims are rocking back and forth, bouncing your legs or feet, hand flapping, hand wringing and repeating words and sentences, but a stim can be any kind of repeated movement or action which stimulates on your senses. Stimming can thus be many different things - you can stim by smelling, touching, watching, moving, tasting and listening. The reason behind why autistic people stim is tied up in the fact that autistic people’s sensory processing tend to be atypical - when there’s a lot of overwhelming, stressing sensory input, providing your own repeated sensory input by listening to a song on repeat or rocking back or forth or smelling something you like the smell of may help you focus and calm down. Autistic people also stim to express emotions - it’s a natural part of our body language just like smiling or frowning is a natural part of most people’s body language. We may jump up and down and flap our hands when excited where most people would simply smile, or we may rock back and forth and press our hands against or faces where other people would cry. That being said, an autistic person doesn’t need a certain, deep reason for stimming - we often do it simply because it’s fun and because it feels good. (If you want to learn more about the different kinds of stimming, click here to watch an informative video)
