Autism vs Autistic

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Hey Gang,

I wanted to see what you guys feel about the two labels Autism and Autistic both have the same meaning however one may imply one is more severe then the other.

I don't have too much of a problem telling somebody (I know) that I have Autism. Tho, telling somebody that I am Autistic for me imply's that something more serious I mean if I were to tell somebody that yea I have Autism more then likely they will be understanding Where as if I were to disclose that I am Autistic that may imply that I am LFA or may drool my self or make weird random noises as what is stereotypically portrayed in the NT person's mind.



Does anybody share the same feeling that somehow the word Autism is more 'lighter' then the word Autistic?

To me the difference is that one is a noun and the other is an adjective. Probably you already know that. I use both words depending on the sentence structure.

However, I can understand what you mean. "Having autism" somehow seems to imply that you are more in control of autism/yourself. However, an "autistic person" sounds like someone who is not fully in control of him/herself. I think it might have something to do with the difference between person-first language and identity-first language(?). The former seems to me to imply that a person has a minor condition that he/she lives with. The latter sounds more serious as if autism is core part of the person and is the major identifying characteristic of the person.

Well, I couldn't describe it too well, but I just wanted to say that I can understand what you mean.

This is pretty much my entire evaluation of the "having autism" versus "is autistic" issue: both word structures describe the same state of being.

That being said, I can see how this point of view comes into play:


What I have seen is that people typically adorn their disclosures of their/someone else's autism with modifying descriptions (i.e. mild, moderate, severe, subclinical, verbal, non-verbal, high/low functioning [though this last dichotomy has its controversies; not every person with an intellectual disability co-morbid with their autism "drools on themselves" or "makes weird noises," and some autistic individuals without a co-morbid intellectual disability may do such things]), being that the word "autistic" or "has autism" can mean so many different things nowadays; the words "autism" and "autistic" themselves do not conjure up an image of any specific severity and/or level of impairment in my mind, though both of these words may conjure up the "severely disabled" images in the mind of the majority of the general population due to the fact that the "severely disabled" stereotype tends to work better for fundraisers and exaggerated movie/TV characters than does an image of someone with a less severe presentation of autism (though we, as a society, are working on this ).

Apparently autism and autistic are two different things to my mother. Autism is the whole spectrum and autistic is just a disorder itself. She has mentioned about me having autism but says I am not autistic. I never asked her about it to clarify.

I tend to use the, interchanably, however I perfer to use autistic to describe myself

I don't like to say 'I have it' because it sounds kind of disease-ish. My brain is wired differently, I am different from those around me, I am autistic. It defines me.

I am autistic.
If you are blind or deaf, you don't say you have blindness or you have deafness.
It sounds silly.

personaly will use either person with autism or autistic on self but naturaly use autistic more because its part of own being.
like marybird mentioned about being HI/VI,they tend to see it like the autistic community;a part of themselves but dont like using deaf or blind unless theyre fully deaf or blind, they tend to use hearing impaired [HI] or visualy impaired [VI]. they even have their own cultures and have places just for HI or VI people such as clubs/bars.
its pretty cool that they have built up their own inner societies around their impairment and not let societys stigma and attitudes towards them win,there is still a horrible stereotype towards deaf people who havent been able to learn speech [so are mute] that they are 'dumb', am really surprised people are still using it but have heard it said.

its a pity it is still used by general public to define ID; drooling is a long dead and buried stereotype of intelectual disability that comes from the tradition of over medicating intelectualy disabled people which caused drooling, as a disability it only starts significantly affecting the physical form at a profound level.
the other common misbelief;ID doesnt cause 'weird noises' ;ID causes speech delay and limitation;sounds used are an attempt to communicate and stimulate the voice box in those of us who are speech impaired.

I now use the two terms more or less interchangeably. However, I think I tend to use "autistic" when I'm talking more about my identity as an autistic.

I see what you mean. Like have autism means somewhere on the spectrum. I'm autistic means like you said. I use them interchangeably on the forums. But for myself I always want to make it clear that I am solidly autistic. It's important to me because it shows someone who is autistic (pronounced classic autism) knows how to communicate and has thoughts and feelings like everyone else. Lots of people are surprised to discover that

I concur. Those who prefer us to use person-first language generally do so with the assumption that we are separate from our disability, but the truth is we are not; it is a large part of what makes us who we are, without it, we would be different people. However, I generally introduce my condition with the phrase "I have Asperger's" because, though it is no longer in the DSM, I feel it better represents my presented traits than "autism" which has a more severe connotation to it. The point is, there is no such expression as "I am Aspergistic", and "I'm an aspie" is too colloquial and informal for NTs who don't know about the disorder to understand, plus, when trying to explain it to someone in a serious manner, "aspie" seems to put too light and inconsequential a spin on it.

^^^ EXACTLY that