Autism and the Human Podcast Transcript, Episode 1, Originally Published June 7, 2022
Rerecorded and republished in 2025
Welcome to the first episode of “Autism and The Human.” I’m Limbic Noodle. Today’s episode is called “Limbic, Liminal, Labels and Language.”
I want to talk to you today about how I chose the online moniker of Limbic Noodle.
The limbic system is part of the brain involved in behavioural and emotional responses. It’s particularly dominant when we are in survival mode, such as when we are in fight, flight, or freeze mode. The way this connects to autism is that the discourse around autism is often focused on the behavioural and emotional responses of Autistic people. The personal narratives of Autistic people often include stories about struggling to become enabled in a disabling world. To me the words “Autism” and “Limbic” are intrinsically related.
I came to “Noodle” a little more circuitously. The first reason for this part of the name is that I find brains resemble fat, wet noodles. I also realized that I liked the word “Limbic” because it reminded me of “Liminal.” Liminal space is one of my favourite concepts. Liminal spaces are generally considered empty, often existing between one destination and another. Many people think of Autistic people as existing the same way in the world, between one space and another, slightly beyond the borders of the human but not quite within the realm of the inhuman.
What I mean by “The Human” will become clearer as we go along. Remember the lines sometimes drawn between what is considered “Normal” and what is maligned, marginalized, and attacked as “Abnormal.” Think about what causes stigmatization when a person is placed outside the boundaries of “The Human.”
Sometimes I imagine myself sliding in and out of these boundaries, noodling between the liminal and non-liminal, lingering in empty spaces where I am less likely to be singled out or noticed negatively. These spaces have always felt safer to me.
Liminal Spaces aren’t just empty. They’re spaces that make you uncomfortable or unsettled. They are thresholds to new or different, transitional, or transformative spaces.
There are both Mental and Physical liminal spaces. We’ve probably all read or watched a coming-of-age story. Think about a movie like It or a television show like Stranger Things, where twelve-year-olds face a monster that serves as a metaphor for the terror and confusion of transitioning into adulthood. The age of 12, when a child teeters on the precipice of adulthood, could be described as a Mental liminal space. It’s an age that feels frightening.
Another non-physical liminal space forms when faced with life-changing events like divorce, job loss, or moving to a new place. These moments in life when catastrophic shifts occur, for bad or good, force us to examine our priorities. Some people call them “Existential crises,” as they cut all the way down to our existence. A brand new liminal space has come into my life in 2025. After 4 years of waiting on a list and another year in a program, I got bariatric surgery in November of 2024. In April of 2025, I am at the point where any more weight loss will make me smaller than I have ever been in my adult life. I find myself fearing the unknown of who I will be once I cross that line, but not wanting to stay on the previous side of the line either. Thus, I am existing in the liminal space between these two states.
Liminal spaces are places that make you feel off. They are places where past and present converge, where the past begs you not to repeat its mistakes. They’re also spaces like stairwells and hallways, which we use to move from one location to another. They aren’t places most of us feel comfortable lingering. On the other hand, they are often places we retreat when we need the world to stand still for a beat.
Reflecting upon the idea of liminal spaces made me think about how Autistic people connect across these spaces, or maybe even inside of them. We connect through shared experiences, common ways of moving through the world, and strategies for surviving in allistically dominated spaces. This reflection inspired a mental image of noodle-like strands extending across liminal spaces, connecting neurodivergent brain stem to neurodivergent brain stem. This solidified the symbolic significance of “Noodle” as part of my online identifier.
There’s so much more to a person’s identity than a name. I can’t help thinking of Shakespeare telling us that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. In light of this sentiment, it might be especially ironic that discourse around autism often doesn’t get a chance to progress further than conversations around the language of identity. I am sure people are listening to this podcast and mentally correcting my language choices. After recently reading Nick Walker’s book, “Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities,” I realized I have misued some vocabulary over the years for a variety of reasons. Ignorance is one of these reasons. However, that makes this discussion even more important.
Up to this point, I’ve consciously decided to use a variety of vocabulary choices, specifically to prevent people from making assumptions about where I position myself before I have the chance to explain my preferences.
“Person-first” versus “Identity-first” language is the center of the derailing discourse to which I already alluded. The “Person-first” position says that one’s personhood should be emphasized more than one’s “Condition.” It views Disability and autism through the Medical Model of Disability lens. In a later podcast episode, I will delve more into the Medical Model of Disability versus the Social Model of Disability. I will briefly outline the difference between the Medical and Social Models of Disability. In “Neuroqueer Heresies,” Nick Walker said that the medical model refers to “Disability” as an impairment or a defect in the body and/or mind. According to Walker, this model sees disability as something a person “has” rather than being essential to who they are (Walker, 61).
The social model of disability developed from the disability rights movement and remains a fundamental understanding of Disability Studies today. Nick Walker said in “Neuroqueer Heresies” that within the social model, “Disabled” is understood as being the opposite of “Enabled.” Society is designed in a way that enables some people to participate and meet their needs (Walker, 61) while others are excluded. Autistic people are often disabled in how they are able to participate in society and meet their needs.
I want to emphasize that disabled people often would prefer you do not say “person with a disability.” This is the case with most Autistic people. Saying “Autistic Person” rather than “Person with Autism” goes beyond framing autism through the social model of disability lens. Apart from recognizing autism as intrinsic to one’s identity, it is also an expression of community and culture. The language that sprang up with the concept of the Neurodiversity Paradigm also does this. I will be speaking rather briefly about this language today. I will expand on this topic in the next episode.
Amy Sequenzia, a non-speaking Autistic, multiply disabled activist and writer, has written many articles about the Identity-first versus Person-First discourse. In “Person first language and ableism,” Sequenzia used a quote from Lawrence-Carter Long to emphasize their reaction when people say things like they see the person, not the disability. Lawrence-Carter Long said, “If you ‘see the person not the disability’ you’re only getting half the picture. Broaden your perspective. You might be surprised by everything you’ve missed. DISABLED. #SayTheWord” (Sequenzia, 2016).
In “Disabled, not broken,” Alex Forshaw said that some people are only disabled because society does not enable them to do certain things the way other people are enabled. For example, imagine if a building were built off the ground, without stairs to the entrances. Everyone would be disabled from entering that building in similar ways. However, buildings with stairs enable those who can use stairs to enter the building. When those same buildings do not have a ramp, wheelchair users continue to be disabled from entering the building. Alex Forshaw warned against using the word “Disabled” in a way that connotes brokenness. Brokenness is a loss of integrity, a shattering and fragmentation that reduces one to a shard of “The Human” rather than a whole person. By disabling a person from participating completely, society takes a whole person and makes them feel like a broken shard.
The sad thing about our society is that “Dependency” is treated as a dirty word. We see this attitude born out within the patriarchy, where women and children are considered subjects of men because they are dependent. The word “Disabled” is viewed negatively for the same reason. It is regarded as a synonym for “Dependent.” We see the term “Differently Abled” promoted as an alternative, due to how desperate people are to disassociate themselves with the concept of dependency. It suggests that if a person tried hard enough, they might find a different set of processes to accomplish a task they are currently disabled from completing, causing them to depend on someone assisting them.
So what happens when that isn’t the case? What happens when no workaround allows an individual to accomplish a task other than depending on another person to assist them? What happens when society refuses to find means to enable people who would otherwise experience disablement? Do those people enter a state of subjectification, like the women and children who were thought to be the subjects of men because they were dependent?
This question was brought to the foreground in April of 2025 by the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He referred to Autistic people as a tragedy for their families. He called them a threat to the American way of life. One of the first examples he used in one speech was that Autistic people would never pay taxes. I know this to be untrue as a person who pays a huge amount of their income to taxes. However, that should not be the point people focus upon. RFK Jr’s statement reinforced the ableist idea that if a person cannot contribute to the capitalistic project as a labourer, consumer and tax payer then they must become the product. A product has no rights. It is not human.
Sometimes I wonder if the way some people in the United States of America attack anything they think could be related to communism and socialism helped create negativity around the concept of dependency. As a Canadian living in the province where Tommy Douglas created universal health care, I embrace many socialist ideals, regardless of what current Saskatchewanians believe on the subject. It is important to interject that although Tommy Douglas made Universal Health Care, he also wrote his thesis on Eugenics. It’s not easy to find an unproblematic historical figure. Indeed, the same is true of people living today. Tommy Douglas did not want other families to be put in the position of having to volunteer their child for experimental and potentially dangerous proceedures just so they would have the chance of being treated, as his parents had been forced to do. However, his view of people born with disabilities was not likely more enlightened that most people in his orbit.
As RFK Jr. alluded to, our society attributes value to individuals based on a cost versus contribution formula. The cost to support a person is measured against what they contribute to society. If a person cannot contribute their labour, they often become a product to be commodified. Autistic people have been turned into products within industries that have been built to provide Allistic people incomes. In the meantime, Autistic people continue to struggle financially. The Autism Industrial Complex includes the Applied Behaviour Analysis industry as well as some non-profit organizations meant to serve Autistic people and their families. Some of these organizations hire Autistic people and operate under neuroaffirming paradigms. However, others do not.
I have experienced what it is like to work in an industry where Autistic people are the product and Allistic people are predominately the ones making an income from Autistic people as a product. I spent a few months working as a Student Support Teacher. I will not pretend I brought everything to the job that it required. However, I was hired as one of two people in the position. This was already fewer than the consultant at the divisional level said was required for a school the size I was working at. After only a few weeks, the second person was pulled out of the position and put into a classroom when the classroom teacher abruptly stopped being employed at the school. Suddenly, I was one person in a three person job, in a role I had never performed before. I was expected to have intimate familiarity with the IEPs of every student in the school. I needed to read all the files, including the ones that did not have active IEPs. I had to update them all. This meant I needed to have meetings with every member of staff. However, I was asked to book these meetings in their prep peri, which I discovered they were fiercly resistant to giving up. This put me in a position of bieng a bad guy in their eyes right off the bat. If you add on top of that that I could not dig my way out from under the work load fast enough to really start working one-on-one with the students, which is what my colleagues felt was my primary role in the school, I was quickly viewed as incompetent, or perhaps just ineffective, in the role. I found myself struggling with my communication difficulties as I sensed the tension growing. I started being afraid to speak directly to staff members. However, every time I tried to communicate through writing, I ended up being accused of being rude. I didn’t feel I was being rude. I thought I was being formal and attempting to err on the side of too much clarity. However, as Damian Milton told us in his “Double Empathy Problem,” there is no such thing as Autistic miscommunication. There is only a mutual failure to communicate effective. In the end, it felt like I was the only one being blammed.
I have reconciled myself to the frustration I felt in my position between September of 2024 and January of 2025. I have even reconciled myself to the unfairness that, after I was moved back to a classroom position, they put two people in the position that they could only spare one person for when I’d been in the job. What I haven’t entirely reconciled myself to is that I have more earned and lived knowledge and experience of autism than anyone in this school, and I cannot find a way I can use it in a paid position that would not add in roles and responsibilities that would wreak havoc on my weaknesses. I have not reconciled myself to being pushed out of the parts of the job that I should be uniquely qualified for because I too closely resemble the “products.”
Circling back to matters of language, I used to have difficulty using “Disabled” to refer to myself. It felt negative in a way Autistic did not. Autistic felt like a part of who I was. Disabled felt like something that was being done to me. Being “Invisibly Disabled” made it worse. As an “Invisibly Disabled” person, I have discovered it can be downright scary to claim the word “Disabled.” I have been verbally attacked for using it, accused of diminishing the impact of the word by applying it to “Minor Inconveniences.”
Amy Sequenzia summarized one argument people make for using “Person-first” language. She said the view is that people should see the person, not the disability (Sequenzia, 2016). This view presumes disability to be negative. It also presumes the negativity of autism. How can someone claim to see us as people if they simultaneously ignore us? This goes beyond just listening to us when we say we want “Identity-first language.” How can you claim to support us while also ignoring us when we tell you to call us Autistic?
I can’t help thinking that it comes down to why disability has such negative connotations in our society. We aren’t supposed to be supported. We are supposed to be independent. If we cannot be independent, we are supposed to…..Well, that’s the question, right? What is the end of that sentence? Are we supposed to adapt? Overcome? Disappear? There are arguments out there for all three. This was the unspoken question at the end of many of RFK Jr’s statements in April of 2025. If were tragedies and a threat to the American way of like, so much so that he wanted to put the names of Autistic people on a database and track us, what might come next? The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention released a red flag warning in April of 2025 that said:
“What can be said with absolute certainty is that whenever a state creates a list of names of people considered to be somehow unfit, we are in the danger zone for a genocidal process.”
Sequenzia summarized another common argument for “Person-first” language as the view that you are much more than your disability (Sequenzia, 2016). First of all, no kidding. We are all more than just one thing. It might blow some people’s minds to find out there are people in this world who are black, women, poor, disabled, and QUILTBAG.
Regardless, as Sequenzia points out, we don’t go around saying someone is a “Person with womanness” or a “Person with Indigenousness.” We don’t refer to someone as a “Person with Doctorness” or a “Person with blackness.” When viewed this way, it seems equally ridiculous that we’d refer to someone as a “Person with Autism.” Sequenzia responded to the idea that disabled people are much more than their disability by saying, “You will try to say that a disability does not define me. How do you know it doesn’t? I define myself and my disability does define me. You are being ableist by telling me how I should feel about being Disabled” (Sequenzia, n.d.).
Aria Sky (a.k.a. Mamautistic) said that autism is always present for them and completes them (Sky, 2017). I agree with Sky’s sentiment that they would not be who they are without autism. There isn’t a single part of my identity that isn’t wound up with autism. For example, I have two bachelor’s degrees and a Master’s in Educational Foundations in Anti-Oppressive Education. Thank you, Autism. Some of you might be scratching your head on that one, but I absolutely attribute my ability to perSever to autism, and no, I don’t mean persevere.
On the other hand, I have not always lived up to the ideal of independence. Being a single parent isn’t easy, especially when the children are young. I needed help. Some people would see admitting to needing help as an admission of failure. I think it is an acknowledgment of my limitations. I struggled with depression, anxiety, and executive functioning when my children were younger. Getting help from family made me a better parent. I needed help when I was in that Student Services position. I was not equipped to do all parts of a three-person job. The more I didn’t ask for help, the worse I looked. On the other hand, asking for help did not seem to get me anywhere either because what I asked for and how I asked for it was viewed as aggressive rather than assertive. .
In a blog called “Musing of an Aspie,” Cynthia Kim described two women. One was named Mary. The other was named Joan. Mary was described as a wife in a stable marriage and a mother who consistently carried out typical parental duties such as parent committees, carpools, and coaching. They were described as having stable employment since the age of 16. They were also described as carrying out tasks such as financial management and cultivating a variety of hobbies.
Joan was described as a wife in an occasionally rocky marriage. They did not have close friends, often preferring to isolate themselves, especially avoiding phone calls. They were described as needing to be reminded to carry out grooming activities or get dressed in the morning. Joan had never done anything like negotiate a car loan, and they’d never lived alone. They liked familiar comforts such as watching Disney movies at the end of a tough day.
It turned out both women were imaginary, created by Cynthia Kim and based on descriptions of themself, depending on what was happening in their life. This duality was relatable to me. As already described, I could describe myself as a successful student and parent, but I could also describe myself as a depressed parent who needed help from others to manage my children. Depending upon the circumstances, either could be true. I could describe myself as a communicative educator who made students feel welcomed, when I was in the classroom. I could also describe myself as scared to communicate with my colleagues to the point they thought I was ineffective or aggressive when I felt unsupported in the Student Services position.
My functionality fluctuates. I like to think that I’ve become steadily more consistent. At this point in my life, I am 15 years clear of my abusive marriage, the parent of young adults who are living independently, and a seasoned teacher. My circumstances allow me to function more consistently as a “Mary” these days rather than as a “Joan.” However, I was pretty depressed between September of 2024 and January of 2025 when I felt I was far more of a “Joan.” On the other hand, there is nothing inherently wrong with being a Joan compared to a Mary. Who among us can say that their ability to function in the world has never faltered or failed when their circumstances have changed?
Coming back to the preference of Identity-First over Person-First language, I would say that people shouldn’t need to be reminded that Autistics are complete people. Amy Sequenzia said, “They use person-first language and forget our humanity” (2019).
Humans are assumed to have the right to define themselves. Sequenzia noted that if an Autistic person wants to identify with “Person-first” language, they would respect their wish. To the rest, Sequenzia suggested that a safe bet would be to use “Identity-first” language and let the person correct you if their preference was “Person-first.” Another option was just to ask them about their preferences.
I know there might be listeners out there saying it was presumptuous of Sequenzia to believe that just because they preferred “Identity-first” language meant most Autistic people shared this preference. My response would be that it is presumptuous to think Autistic people haven’t made enquiries regarding these preferences and paid attention to the responses.
On the other hand, “Autism Speaks” tweeted on July 22, 2019:
Do you prefer person-first language or identity-first language? Choose which you prefer and then reply to tell us why as well as your connection to autism. Thanks!
As far as I am concerned, the only acceptable response to the question about the connection to autism would be that the responder was Autistic. However, I acknowledge that Autism Speaks was trying to include a broad audience. All that being said, the response was overwhelmingly one-sided. 81.5% of respondents chose the answer: I am autistic. 18.5% of the respondents chose: I have autism.
As of 2022, the front-facing page of Autism speaks Canada still read:
“We invite you to join us in our journey to create a more inclusive and kinder world for people with autism” (Autism Speaks Canada, 2022).
Autism Speaks asked a very specific question, received an undeniably one-sided answer, and proceeded to ignore it. Why are Autistic people and others on the “Identity-first” side of this discourse ignored? As with most instances where a marginalized group is ignored when speaking for and about themselves, it is connected to power dynamics. The same was unfortunately true in my position as Student Services Teacher. I might have more knowledge and lived experience, but I did not have power.
Sequenzia said that the media and editors do not respect disabled people. They bend to the majority’s preferences and try to bully disabled people into doing the same. Sequenzia said that some editors simply changed the words disabled people used to refer to themselves without consulting the disabled people in question.
Sequenzia said that person-first language is not about looking out for the sensitivities and dignity of disabled people, evidenced by the fact that, for the most part, we did not ask for it and were not consulted. Sequenzia said the push to use person-first language is about making non-disabled people feel like they are protecting disabled people (Sequenzia. 2017).
If these language choices were about us, they’d listen to us when we tell them it isn’t what we want. It is fair to wonder exactly how valid and “human” they believe our voices to be, given how easy it appears to be for them to set aside our wishes.
The blogger of “Stims, Stammers, and Winks” said that the emerging Autistic Lexicon is proof of the existence of autistic culture. This lexicon is used to resist oppression and ableism. This probably is why the majority of people insisting upon the use of person-first language are not autistic. The “Stims, Stammers, and Winks” blogger said:
“It is important to specify that such words serve two main functions: creating a language of our own and resisting abusive and ableist pathologization” (Stims, Stammers, and Winks. 2013).
Acknowledging an Autistic culture might lead one to conclude that autism doesn’t need to be overcome; a possibility at least one industry has a vested interest in resisting. If the existence of an Autistic culture is acknowledged, one might conclude that all the talk about curing autism is akin to attacking other cultural groups. One might start to think about different cultures that had outsiders to their culture say they needed to be “cured.” People might begin to recognize the implicit Eugenics mindset in this speech.
Autism doesn’t need to be cured. It is alright to be Autistic. It’s more than alright to be Autistic.
However, there are industries built upon the pathologization of Autistic personhood and culture. I can relate to Dr. Dawn-Joy Leong’s frustration at how many non-disabled people claim to be disability experts and correct them on their use of self-identifying terminology. I envision becoming a Neurodivergency Consultant for a school system in Canada. I would have to compete with Allistic people who followed the Allistic preferences. Dr. Leong said that she was told she should be grateful to be given a platform when she asked for honorariums for speaking, while allistic “experts” were paid for their time without having to ask (Leong, 2020). This is especially infuriating when one knows the rate of Autistic unemployment and underemployment.
There is a good chance any podcasting and blogging I do will never result in a profit. Meanwhile, there are industries full of people making a living from speaking for and over Autistic people. Our Autistic existence is being commodified to provide a living for Allistics. Therefore, it is fair to say that they have a vested interest in speaking for us and over us. Multi-million dollar corporations could be argues to have more legal “Personhood” under the law of the United States of America than Autisitic people, especially after everything said by RFK Jr. in April of 2025.
Nick Walker said that Autistic activists have started to develop a shared understanding that they belonged to an oppressed group. In their book, “Neuroqueer Heresies,” Walker talked about how these activists began to recognize patterns of oppression experienced by Autistic people that mirrored the patterns of oppression experienced by other oppressed groups. As awareness of these patterns developed, Walker said Autistic advocates realized the need for new vocabularies to help express these ideas (Walker, 2021).
Identity-first language choices are not restricted to saying “Autistic” rather than “Person with Autism.” Other identity-first words have become part of the Autistic lexicon, including Neurodivergent, Neurodiverse, Neuroqueer, and abbreviations such as Autie and Aspie. The term “Changeling” is a less common choice. I will begin by speaking about the word “Changeling” because I am least familiar with its uses.
The blogger of “Stims, Stammers, and Winks” wrote about the usage of this word by Autistic people in a post called “Revolt of the Changelings and the Feral Children: Reuniting with Autistic ancestral spirits.” This blogger, who did not identify themselves by any other name than that of the blog, described themself as a queer, disabled writer. In the mentioned post, the blogger said it was a lecture in a “Foundations of Disability Studies” class that helped them make connections between the historical and mythological views of disability and their hobby of playing Dungeons and Dragons. They said that disabled children in the middle ages were called changelings. They said the children, called changelings, “were assumed to be put in place of children by demons and whose parents were thought to be witches and warlocks who had been cursed by Satan or other evil gods for their sins” (Stims, Stammers and Winks. 2013).
Changelings in the role-playing game “Dungeons and Dragons” are shapeshifters, wanderers, masters of disguise and concealment, and make excellent spies and criminals. The blogger said there is a social stigma around being a Changeling in the imaginary culture of Dungeons and Dragons, so they often don’t appear in their proper form.
I understand why the blogger drew connections between the historical view of Changelings, their depiction in Dungeons and Dragons, and Autistics. After all, I also mask my true identity. I push down natural tendencies so deep that it could be argued I forget who I am. I once participated in a suicide intervention workshop. We were role-playing intervention scenarios. I decided that considering the significantly higher rate of suicide amongst Autistic people, I should approach the role-play as an Autistic person who needed suicide intervention. I chose to let out everything I pushed down in my daily life. It took me a concerted effort to drop the barriers I used to hold back these natural tendencies.
I remember something disturbing that happened to me at a writer’s workshop. I was talking about personal experiences and casually mentioned that I was Autistic. At this point in my life, it was natural to mention being Autistic openly. What wasn’t natural was having a woman in the circle burst out crying. They heard me say that I am Autistic and started to cry. It was so off-putting that I almost forgot what I was about to say.
The blogger of Stims, Stammers, and Winks said that the social stigma of the Changelings in European mythology carried over to the Changelings of Dungeons and Dragons. These Dungeons and Dragons characters are “predestined toward crime, are pre-infantilized, are something other and more evil than human, are unstable and stigmatized” (Stims, Stammers, and Winks, 2013). It is safe to assume the European people behind these beliefs held the same assumptions of the autistic children they called Changelings. It is upsetting to realize that many people still believe similar things about Autistic people today. The blogger of Stims, Stammers, and Winks said that Autistic people are often accused of not having moral judgement and are thought to be too anti-social to have a shared group culture. They said:
“We are seen as doppelgangers, as less than human” (Stims, Stammers and Winks, 2013).
The historical use of the word “Changeling” established the presence of Autistic culture long before medical science came up with the word “Autism” or endeavoured to describe what autism was. However, I think the historical connotations of “Changeling” are too ugly to be easily redeemed through connections to nostalgia such as Dungeons and Dragons. This is especially true considering the culture of Dungeons and Dragons also stigmatizes Changelings.
Most of the other terms I want to touch on fall under the umbrella of the language of the Neurodiversity Paradigm. I will get into that in a future podcast. Before I do, I want to discuss some terms that don’t fall under this umbrella. For example, I recently learned that some members of the conspiracy theory group known as QAnon like to call themselves “Autists.” You are probably wondering why. That’s fair. I also found myself feeling curious and alarmed when I made this discovery. These QAnoners consider themselves dogged diggers of truth. They have glommed on to the idea of perSeverance and have decided this characteristic is something worth co-opting. In the past, I sometimes used “Autist.” It is a term I won’t use for myself after finding out about this co-opting.
I also used to refer to myself as an “Aspie.” I have a couple of things against the term now. The term is an abbreviation for Asperger’s. When I learned about Hans Asperger’s activities during World War II, that was the end of my wanting to identify with his name. Some people would say that Asperger did what he needed to survive. They’d say that he did the bidding of the Nazi party out of necessity. I think that is letting him off the hook to a degree I am unwilling.
Asperger selected children to “protect” within the boundaries of his studies. These children physiologically met the standards dictated by the Nazis. The others were condemned to death. Asperger’s Syndrome did not exist as a diagnosis at the time because it had not been named and described. Hans Asperger sent out letters containing lists of characteristics to look for in children. He encouraged parents who saw these characteristics in their children to contact him and allow them to be part of his study. He must have known the potential risks of asking parents to send their children, who might otherwise have passed for quirky and eccentric, to his clinic for study. He must have been aware of patients from other areas of the hospital being murdered by the Nazi party. There is no way he could have believed he would be allowed to take all of the children referred to him by their parents into his study. Thus, he had to have known the ones who were not admitted into his study would be murdered.
The Nazi party believed that as long as parents believed their children died naturally, they would ultimately be relieved to be rid of the burden of raising them. As I already stated, though, these children might never have been in danger if Asperger had not specifically given a list of characteristics to parents that he gave them reason to believe where pathological, and invited them to send their children to him. There is a good chance they would have been considered quirky, or eccentric, as I already mentioned, or perhaps by the end of the war they would have been viewed as traumatized. There is little chance most of the parents would have knowingly sent their children to die strapped down to a bed, pumped full of morphine, and starved to death. Hans Asperger was the one who encouraged so many parents to unwittingly put their children in the crosshairs of the Nazi genetic cleansing machine, so he does not get a pass from me.
Now is a great moment to switch gears and introduce some of the vocabulary of the “Neurodiversity Paradigm.” Judy Singer, a social scientist from Australia, claims to have created the work “Neurodiversity.” This has been disputed. It appears that at a minimum, she did not create it alone. The meaning of the word was described in terms of there being a diverse array of neurological ways of being, not unlike social psychologist Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. The main difference between Neurological Diversity and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences is that Neurological diversity is pathologized.
Kassianne Asasumasu (formerly Sibley) created the words “Neurodivergence” and “Neurodivergent” as non-pathologizing and stigmatizing terms (Stims, Stammers, and Winks, 2013). It was meant to be more specific to describing the Neurodivergent person’s way of existing in the world rather than their way of existing in the world compared to allistic people, as neurodivergence more aptly describes.
Next podcast, I will go into detail about the language of the Neurodiversity Paradigm. It is a vocabulary I often have misused. The most common reason I’ve misused the language is that I wanted to deflect criticism from people who did not like me using Autistic. The words in question had the feel of buzzwords and felt like the kind of thing people wouldn’t correct you for using because they weren’t entirely sure what they meant. Ironically, I also didn’t understand the words most of the time when I used them as a form of deflection.
There are three final, interrelated terms I wish to discuss. The first is “Autism Spectrum.” In my opinion, the problem with the concept of the “Autism Spectrum” is that it creates divisions and prioritizes. I visualize the autism spectrum as a vertical ladder. The rungs on the top are Autistics who have high-support needs. The rungs on the bottom are Autistics that have low-support needs. I was tempted to say that I visualize it as a pyramid. This configuration suggests that there are numerically fewer Autistics with high-support needs, which is not the point I was looking to make. It is often argued that those on the top rungs of the ladder should have the majority of the resources because their care needs are more intense. It also is often suggested that the voices of parents of people on those higher rungs should be given more weight and credibility than the voices of the Autistic individuals on the lower rungs.
There’s an additional aspect of this ladder I find even more problematic. I visualize a section of rungs above the rungs occupied by the two divisions I’ve already named. It is not generally acknowledged. As I imagine, these rungs are occupied by parents, professionals, and the industries/corporations that make money providing services and advocacy for Autistics. That means that the parents of the individuals on the top rungs actually take up even more space, which makes it particularly important how they use their voices and their space.
The problem is that Autistic discourse, as in discourse about and by Autistic people, is too often derailed by Autism discourse, or discourse about Autistic people that occurs without Autistic people. The concept of the Autism Spectrum suggests that all of us are on the spectrum. As I see it, though, Autistic people fall beneath the groups of allistic people I’ve just mentioned.
Parents, professionals, industries and corporations occupy most of the space. I said it is important how how they use this space. Too often, they use their voices and space to punch down on Autistic people who have any difference of perspective than them. They make accusations such as those one the bottom rungs are diverting attention and resources away from those who need both more. Queerly Autistic said:
“I have been told that I am a ‘high-functioning’ Autistic. 90% of the times that people try to apply this label to me, it is a last-ditch attempt to try and get me to stop talking” (Queerly Autistic, 2017).
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t is hard to give proper citations on a podcast so I will be putting my works cited on this platform. The works cited for Limbic, Liminal, Labels and Language (Episode One of Autism and The Human) are listed below.
Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities. Autonomous Press.
Sequenzia, A. (n.d.). Person first language and ableism. Ollibean. https://ollibean.com/person-first-language-and-ableism/
Forshaw, A. (2013, October 22). Disabled, not broken. My autistic dance. https://myautisticdance.blog/?s=Disabled%2C+not+broken
Sequenzia, A. (n.d.). The gymnastics of person first language. Ollibean. https://ollibean.com/the-gymnastics-of-person-first-language/#:~:text=Person%20First%20Language%20is%20about,in%20when%20talking%20about%20Autistics.
Sky, A. (n.d.). Mamautistic: I’m an autistic mama blogging about memories and life. https://mamautistic.site/
Kim, C. (2013, June 26). Decoding the high functioning label. Musings of an aspie. https://musingsofanaspie.com/2013/06/26/decoding-the-high-functioning-label/
Autism Speaks [@autimspeaks]. (2019, July 22). Twitter. https://twitter.com/autismspeaks/status/1153347990452658178
Autism Speaks. (2020, December 11). Our Mission. Autism Speaks. https://www.autismspeaks.org/about-us
Queer Disabled Writer. (2013, November 1). Autistic vocabularies of resistance and community: how autistics speak. Stims, stammers and winks. http://stimstammersandwinks.blogspot.com/search?q=autistic+lexicon
Queer Disabled Writer. (2013, September 12). Revolt of the changelings and the feral children: Reuniting with autistic ancestral spirits. Stims, stammers and winks. http://stimstammersandwinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Changelings
Leong, D. (2020, August 19). Seeing clearly. bunnyhopscotch. https://bunnyhopscotch.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/seeing-clearly/
Queer Disabled Writer. (2013, November 1). Autistic vocabularies of resistance and community: How autistics speak. http://stimstammersandwinks.blogspot.com/2013/
Limbic Noodle 
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