Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

by Nick Walker

So if we use phrases like “person with autism,” or “she has autism,” or “families affected by autism,” we’re using the language of the pathology paradigm—language that implicitly accepts and reinforces the assumption that autism is intrinsically a problem, a Something-Wrong-With-You. In the language of the neurodiversity paradigm, on the other hand, we speak of neurodiversity in the same way we would speak of ethnic or sexual diversity, and we speak of autistics in the same way we would speak of any other social minority group: I am autistic. I am an autistic. I am an autistic person. There are autistic people in my family. These linguistic distinctions might seem trivial, but our language plays a key role in shaping our thoughts, our perceptions, our cultures, and our realities. In the long run, the sort of language that’s used to talk about autistics has enormous influence on how society treats us, and on the messages we internalize about ourselves.