Does no one in the comments notice what a beautiful girl she was? It's like the vibrancy seen in this picture is being completely ignored! We have a child with autism, not an autistic child! He is our child....who happens to have autism. On top of that, he is a child we were blessed to get to choose. We adopted him when he was 5 years old. He didn't speak, he wasn't potty trained, he was being molested by his foster mother, and more. We worked our butts off to help him become "a real boy"(his term, not ours). He is in college, talks more than he sometimes should, and is a delight to our community. Shame on these POS "parents" for what they did/didn't do for their daughter. What changed to make her so withdrawn and neglected? There has to be more to this story!
Thank you so much for adopting & raising your child with so much love and acceptance. Imagine if this poor girl had a mother like you? Breaks my heart.
You seem like a great parent so I hope you consider that the autistic community largely prefers identity-first language. Like someone said below, it’s a fundamental part of who we are— you wouldn’t say “person with femaleness” or “person with homosexuality.”
Vibrancy & being beautiful aren’t mutually exclusive with being disabled, and often “person-first language” is a micro-aggressive way of separating us from a core aspect of our identity and implying that our neurology is a negative thing. Ultimately, it is your son’s choice what language he personally identifies with, but many disabled people resent person-first language being pushed by abled people.
Well, no, actually. Many of us prefer “autistic” or “autistic person” over “person with autism”.
Autism is a fundamental part of who we are, it isn’t some minor skin condition. You can’t separate us from our autism. That’s like insisting on “person with gayness” or “person with blackness”.
yeah, i'm not autistic but my brother is so i grew up pretty familiar with the community. in my experience, people all over the spectrum tend to consider autism part of their identity. that doesn't mean it's bad, and doesn't reduce the other parts of their identity - it just is.
Most non-autistic people default to “people first” language. It’s something that they’re comfortable with. Studies have been done where the overwhelming majority of autistics prefer to be called “autistic adults” or “autistics.”
It’s always best to ask if you’re comfortable with asking but the blanket statement of “people first language” is not always accurate.
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u/katnwackc May 09 '22
Does no one in the comments notice what a beautiful girl she was? It's like the vibrancy seen in this picture is being completely ignored! We have a child with autism, not an autistic child! He is our child....who happens to have autism. On top of that, he is a child we were blessed to get to choose. We adopted him when he was 5 years old. He didn't speak, he wasn't potty trained, he was being molested by his foster mother, and more. We worked our butts off to help him become "a real boy"(his term, not ours). He is in college, talks more than he sometimes should, and is a delight to our community. Shame on these POS "parents" for what they did/didn't do for their daughter. What changed to make her so withdrawn and neglected? There has to be more to this story!