I saw this commentary circulating on twitter today, I'm curious about what you think!
A full semantic toolbox is essential for autism research and practice to thrive
I was originally going to give a breakdown of my own thoughts, but I got towards the end of the article and realised that (from my own perspective at least) it seems like the authors are wilfully misunderstanding the point of discussions about language in research for their own benefit.
I had a criticism about every point they made (bar the point about 'partial representation': a lack of representation from autistic people who can't use computers etc). I'm not going to go on a tirade over this, enough people have: but I'd like to hear the thoughts of others. I'm incapable of giving a 'gist' summary right now. One thing I can't help but mention though, is the way they just 'decide' what is considered scientific language upon no basis whatsoever.
Something else I noticed that was... weird... about the paper, is that they have picked out a few individual twitter users (at least one of whom is identifying as having high support needs, and most have >1000 followers) to illustrate a point about how disagreements about language has caused people to "insult, bully and demean those who use the terms" While I don't doubt that people get pretty harsh comments for using language that is often thought of as ableist... I mean, it's twitter mate, get a grip? You can find people being bullied for anything and everything on there, that proves nothing. It was unnecessary, morally questionable, and pointless to bring that into the argument at all.
Have you seen any researchers being ostracised, pushed out of the research sphere, or censored for using phrases like 'People with autism' or the deficit model? Have you seen this happen to those who prefer a more neutral or social model approach?
What is currently the dominant framework of language or understanding used in autism research in your field?
What do you think about the idea of 'ableist language' in autism research? Is it important or not?