Aspergers referred to as a disease?

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Personally I wouldn't care what they are called, but sometimes it seems to be an issue and I have found it impossible to find a term that wouldn't hurt anyone. Condition sounds quite indefinite to me, I think it can to refer any kind of... condition. I have also heard the term "medical condition", but I think it can also be used as synonyme to disease.

According to dictionary.com, syndrome is "a group of symptoms that together are characteristic of a specific disorder, disease, or the like." I think that fits to Asperger's syndrome as well.

Epilepsy is a syndrome too. It's not one single illness, but a group of different symptons caused by different reasons. It's still also a disease.

I think the main problem is the negative connotations related to the word "disease", because it used to be linked to infectious diseases and other conditions that do catch and that people just want to get rid of. But many diseases are inborn and life-long conditions that cannot be cured even if there are ways of medical treatment that make it easier to live with the disease.

Earlier I did think "disease" is a wrong word for autism and found it insulting. That was because of the stigm around the word.

Generally, a "disease" is "caused" by something like a virus, bacterium, fungus, etc.

Autism is not a "disease" under any definition. Sometimes, it could manifest itself as a "syndrome," a "disorder," a "condition," and a "difference."

In many cases, there is a relative lack of "objective signs" in autism, especially the milder varieties. And lots of subjective impressions.

The diagnosis of autism is based on a similar premise as many psychological disorders. There's no "test" like a Pap Smear or a Tuberculin test for autism.

There are many theories floating around--but, in reality, there is no characteristic "autistic brain." One cannot look at a brain post-mortem, like with Alzheimer's Disease, and determine if a person had autism.

I wouldn't say epilepsy is a "disease." I would call it a "condition," perhaps part of a "syndrome."

I might go as far as to call it merely a "symptom."

Ok, I disagree, but I'm cool with that. I see there are different approaches to this topic. Disease may sound more like an infectious disease, but personally I include most conditions that have a diagnostic classification.

I peruse the online medical sites periodically and am not seeing it referred to as a disease. Its being called a developmental disorder/condition.

For many people the word disease conjures up images of sickness, plague, leprosy and carrying a little bell and warning people that you are "Unclean." Those are not mental images that I'd willing wish anyone to associate with autism.

And I for one do object to the use of the word disease being used for epilepsy. I have it and I have diabetes too, neither are diseases they are conditions. People can be born with them or they can develop them later in life but you can't catch them, they are not infectious and they are not diseases.

As far as I'm concerned, a disease does not mean something you must catch. It can be an inborn and life-long condition as well as infectious disease. I don't want to maintain the stigma around the word disease. By doing so we only stigmatize diseases and people with them. It doesn't equal to plague or anything dirty. There's nothing dirty or bad in the word itself. People with diseases are not inferior. Many words have negative connotations that don't belong to the words. It doesn't mean mean we should consider them as such. Also autism is often abused word. Many people only use it in negative contexts when describing someone's selfish or stubborn behaviour that has nothing to do with autism itself.

So, if someone wants to add extra connotations and negative mental images to the word or invent totally new meanings, it's not my problem. I have autism and epilepsy, and I consider them as diseases and want them to be treated as such, not differences. I have some differences as well, but because they are only differences and not diseases, they don't need medical treatment or diagnosis. Disease is nothing I should be ashamed of, or what other people should abhor. I am perfectly fine with having diseases, and I hope others would accept it as well.

Anyway, I understand and accept if someone doesn't want to refer autism as a disease. I used to think just that earlier. Everyone has the right to refer him/herself with a word he/she finds the best, and I can refer my autism and epilepsy diseases as well as medical conditions, depending on the context.

Perception is everything. People perceive "diseases" as equating to sicknesses. I am not sick, I am not ill, I do not require fixing, I cannot be cured because I am not sick, I simply have autism, just as others have Down's Syndrome or William's syndrome, they're were born that way, they live with it. What they have can't be fixed and it can't be cured because they do not have diseases.

I understand that point.

But I don't care what people perceive the word. It's their problem, not mine. Although I don't know many people who would see disease that way. It's just a medical umbrella term.

People also perceive autism with lack of empathy, being simple, sociopath, rude, stupid... It's nit nice, but it doesn't mean autos would mean that. And I don't stop using the word just because the incorrect perceptions.

Of course I must say that as a non-native speaker I don't maybe hear all the nuances in the words. In my native language there is only one neutral, general word for illness, sickness and disease. Some people find it not suitable in the case of autism, but it is often considered as such in scientific language. And others who do suffer from their autism find it just harmful when people are denying their sufferings by saying it's only a personal trait.

I would say that autism is not a "disease" from the viewpoint of the English vernacular meaning of the term "disease."

There is the same struggle going on in many language. And as it can be seen, not all natives agree with you (given that the writer above is a native). Here are also good points http://www.savagelightstudios.com/warpedlens/?p=113

And, most English-speakers are non-natives. So the majority doesn't get all the nuances (and even natives may understand in different ways). I have been treated by experts who used the term "disease" when referring to autism (I have no idea if they were native speakers or not, but could've been). I didn't find it insulting in any way. As doctors they know the differences between infectious diseases and chronic illnesses better than I do.

But anyway, by avoiding the word we just maintain the stigma around it, and I don't want to do that. I rather want to help people to wide their image of what disease can be and what it really is. If someone is so narrow-minded that cannot understand it other way than as a dirty sickness, he probably is not able to understand the concept of autism. Where I live most people are aware of the nature of autism; they know it's not something dirty that can be catched. It's still a misunderstood word, it has at least as bad meanings as disease. Difficult, selfish or persnickety people are called "autistic". Also "special needs" is a an abused term and often used very negatively, even though I think it was created as an euphemism for someone with a disease or disability. If the word "condition" become more usual, people start to misuse it as well. (Without doubt it might be a bit more difficult because it's so indefinite term and could refer to anything. But often medical terms just must be more accurate. No one understand the need for medication or special support if I just say I have a condition...).

In many languages, disability used to be an offensive and abuse term before the disability movement adopted it and created the positive image and identity related to disabilities. Now it's rather a neutral term, although still sometimes misused. (And I have also read it's not a correct word - "I don't have a disability, I have a different ability"). But I rather fight against the stigmatization and misusing of words than give up.