Q & A: Autism a disease? disorder? disability? difference?
September 17, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
An article in today’s Texarkana Gazette entitled Autism: a disease with many questions and not many answers makes me reflect on the use of words like “disease,” “disorder,” “difference,” “disability,” and “difference” and others in talking about autism.
Which of these words—if any—do you use?
disorder
difference
disability
As appropriate.
Is an autistic person sitting alone in a room disabled? Is an autistic person at the library disabled?
It depends on the person and the situation. The person sitting alone in a room may be disabled because of executive functioning issues that won’t allow them to get up and leave, or they may not be disabled because they’re watching TV or reading a book and enjoying themselves.
And so on and so forth.
This reminds me of speaking to B recently about these words… he had been using “disorder”, but when I explained that “disorder” means “not in order” or perhaps “not working properly” he was upset, & settled on “neurological difference” instead. I sometimes use “developmentally disabled” when referring to B, usually with folks who might not understand the possibilites of autism (& only the deficits) & I think it’s also an accurate term because of his developmental delays.
I first was uncomfortable using “developmentally disabled” but have been using it more now—-I often use “neurologically different” too in some contexts. Disease, illness, sickness, something wrong—those are not good.
I use “disorder” and “disability” most of the time. We are comfortable with the word disability because my 14-year-old is blind and has Aspergers. I am also hearing impaired (not toally deaf), so we have two disabled family members.
A close relative is physically disabled as a result of an accident and I got used to talking about disability too as a result. Also, my in-laws are both disabled—wheelchairs, walkers, elevator chair—–Charlie has had to learn to wait for them and is starting to help out by getting them things and doing some basic chores.
special needs (mostly about school stuff
disability
Of the people I most enjoy spending time with, one is blind and another carries a handicap parking hangtag in her purse, so disability issues come up at times. (Neither of them drives, and I like driving both of them; I just wish I could do so more often than I can. N. is one of the best passengers I’ve ever had, and T. is fairly pleasant, as well.)
I use “disorder” only as part of “autism spectrum disorder” or “pervasive developmental disorder.”
is autism a disease? can you buy medicine for it. or do you have to take your kid to treatment???
Saying that autism is a disorder would be more accurate; autism is not an infectious disease (you can’t “catch” it). Treatment often incorporates both educational and medical approaches.
i use the term ‘autistic difficulties’ (as in, the sorts of difficulties that an autistic person will experience in typical everyday/working/school conditions _when there is no accommodation in place for that person_).
we experience difficulties, not disorder; we are psycho-biologically different but that is not actually the same as disordered (even using an epidemiological approach, the notion that we are is simply an appeal to number).
we certainly are not diseased, with regard to being autistic; of course, if we get ill (e. g., colds, infections, etc), we become diseased! otherwise… hell, no!
disability only occurs when the degree to which one is ‘different’ comes into conflict with a system that will not flex to meet those elements of difference that contribute along with that system to the existence of a disability (e. g., in a totally oral culture, there can be no dyslexia – even if we agree that dyslexic people have differences in brain development affecting areas associated with learning the skills involved in reading and writing – because it requires the insistence on textual repository of knowledge rather than the oral transmission seen in non-literate cultures).
so, disabled only in the absence of appropriate accommodatioin/support.
If Autism incorporates both educational and medical approach, does that mean that we can discuss autism as both: disorder and disease?
I’ve never really thought of Autism as nothing more than that. They say it’s a developmental thing, but unlike a disease you can’t catch it. I feel that it is a disorder, much like Asperger’s, a disorder on the autism spectrum. I’m fine with whatever you call it, so long as you don’t repeat the word you describe it with and remember to spell it right.
Autism..
one of the sadder things in life. How can something so beautiful be so awful??? Autistic children and even grown ups are known as disabled, but i think of them as just.. different. They see things we can’t see. They feel things we can’t feel. They are no better than us, nor we they. They live in a completely different world then us. They see beyond the normality we see. Is this bad? I don’t think so. Sure… it’s sad. But falling down is sad. breaking a bone is sad, moving away is sad. We fail to see the GOODNESS of it. Call it what you will, I still think it’s amazing
A disorder? yes! disease? no. However symptoms sometime improve treating immune deficiencies and gastro-intestinal symptoms.