The Anti-Autism Manifesto - by Tove K - Wood From Eden

I have always been skeptical of the high-functioning autism label. “Autism” was originally a very severe disability. Then all other psychiatric diagnoses for children with social difficulties were removed, so quite suddenly, also otherwise normal people with some social quirks are said to be autistic. The label “high-functioning” was added, in order to differentiate the merely-a-bit-quirky people from the severely retarded people. 

I always thought it was a bit impolite. Calling a socially quirky but  otherwise functioning person “high-functioning autistic” is like calling a person who is a bit bad at math but otherwise normal “a high-functioning retard”. You don't do that. You say, quite correctly, that the person has dyscalculia, IQ in the lower ranges or whatever. You don't stretch the concept of mental retardation to every person who has anything in common with people with mental retardations. So why is that being done with every person who has anything even remotely in common with a socially retarded person?

For many years, I gruffed like this, while continuing using the autism label. Then something terrible happened, that forced me to think: My teenage daughter went mad.

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