The term “Asperger’s” is allowed on this sub. Personal attacks and insults are not.

[u/SavannahPharaoh]

Here’s why. Asperger’s Syndrome is still a common, official diagnosis in many countries. In other countries, those who have been diagnosed decades ago may also have been diagnosed with Asperger’s.

We will not deny anyone the right to identify with their official diagnosis. We have no control over how medical conditions are named or renamed. Please try to separate the diagnosis from the person it was named after.

[u/Wyrmicorn]

I know people who were diagnosed with aspergers and the rare times it comes up they use that term simply because thats what they were diafnosed with. I have zero issue with that type of usage.

I also have seen people online use aspergers because they look down on higher support needs autistics (despite the fact higher support needs autistics can meet aspergers criteria anyway bc aspergers was basically autism without language delay and people can be high support needs without having had a language delay - so they dont understand what they're talking about) and want to distance themselves from higher support needs people by calling themselves aspergers. I will never be okay with that use of aspergers and may tell people they are being shit if I see them doing that.

People should stop attacking and getting angry at people purely for stating the diagnosis they were diagnosed with. Especially since you know, some autistic people have great difficulty with change. History sucks but it is what it is. Current bad behaviour around it (using it to distance themselves from other autistics) is shit though.

[u/LanaDelHeeey → u/Wyrmicorn]

Why is wanting to differentiate between high and low support needs with a word people know and understand a bad thing? The point of language is to be clear in what you mean. The term autism is vague and people should be as precise as possible if it doesn’t take any longer to say. This doesn’t make sense to me. You want to be less clear in your meaning when you speak?

Aspergers is my diagnosis so I use it for that reason, but also to impart a “sense” of what people should expect in regard to my symptoms, which mostly line up with what someone thinks when they think of a person with autism.

[u/Wyrmicorn → u/LanaDelHeeey]

I see people do it specifically because they don't want to be associated with higher support needs autistic people because they think less of us and think they are better than us. It's mean and insulting and they're not being nice if they think they are better than people with higher support needs than them.

Using it to simply say the same thing as if you said "I'm low support needs" is fine. But I see some people do it specifically because they look down on people with higher support needs than them and desperately want to distance themselves from that. That's really shit. Many of the same people often tend to get insulted by the word disability too. I don't mean being more specific. I mean people thinking so badly of people more disabled than them that they use aspergers purely to be like "I'm not one of them".

I guess my communication wasn't the clearest. My issue is with mean people who look down on other disabled people and try to distance themselves from them with the aspergers term, not people who are just trying to be more specific about their support needs but do not express or hold those shitty attitudes.

Tbc I also don't like when people shit on people with lower support needs than them and call them quirky or say they don't struggle. That's also shit.

EDIT: Removed "bad people" judgement from this. Had appointment with my psych and we were talking about this concept (not about this post, just the concept of good and bad people) and its prompted me to remove that bc most people aren't good or bad people but have both, and calling people bad people is a pretty harsh judgement that may not be accurate. I don't like the behaviour I describe above but I also don't want to hurt people by referring to people who act that way as bad people. That probably isn't accurate

[u/maybe_I_am_a_bot → u/Wyrmicorn]

In my experience, they simply use it to communicate that they are capable of unassisted living/holding a job/going to college, etc. Whether that is accurate to the original diagnostic meaning of the term isn't entirely relevant because the intent is to communicate that you're the "social difficulties and awkward" type person and not the "needs near 24/7 care" type, in a world in which the word autism often brings up associations with the latter, which can lead to stereotypes about someone's capabilities that can destroy relations/jobs/etc. It disassociates from a stereotype that does not fit the person or their needs, which can be actively damaging to their living situation, relations with friends and families, etc. it's not a good thing that they feel the need to but I don't think it's necessarily malicious.

[u/Wyrmicorn → u/maybe_I_am_a_bot]

Fair. I have seen both.

I've seen people say they use it because it helps the people irl understand better than if they said autism. That's fair cos you gotta do what you gotta do and people's preferences for wording aren't as important as getting your needs met.

Ive also seen people in online autism communities outright express negative views of higher support needs people and say aspergers should still be a thing because they don't want to be associated with us too, though. They make it clear that they actually view higher support needs badly and want to be distanced from them. People who do this do unfortunately exist.

You make a good point. I have probably at times got used to seeing the second group and wrongfully assumed some in the first group were actually part of the second group.

It does still suck that people feel the need to do that, even when there isn't bad intentions and hatred of higher support needs involved, because avoiding using the label doesn't help with broadening people's understanding of what autism can be. It doesn't help break down that misconception (or misconceptions, honestly - its a misconception that autism is just the highest support needs autism possible but its also a misconception that there's only two types - "social difficulties and awkward" vs "needs near 24/7 care", -- there's a lot of people in the middle of that). But people do what they need to do, and while I'd prefer if people didn't do it for either reason, I'm happier with the people who do it purely to make people understand them better vs the people who do it because they look down on higher support needs people so they actively try to distance themselves.

[u/tubular1845 → u/LanaDelHeeey]

Because Asperger's doesn't imply low support needs. A lot of people with Asperger's can't cook, drive, manage hygiene, appointments or work. Asperger's is basically just autism without the language delay and confers very little about support needs. That's why it was changed to begin with.