9:39pm July 9, 2014

➸ First Signs of Asperger Syndrome in Young Girls Pre-school

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

alliecat-person:

alliecat-person:

autisticadvocacy:

The following list is an official working screener document consisting of the unique characteristics and traits of preschool girls with Asperger Syndrome, or Aspiengirls.

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thoughts?

My thought is that this provides me with some good material for the guest lecture on autism and gender I’m giving in a friend’s class in a few weeks.

And that I hate the terminology with passion.

…damnit, I’m going to have to purchase this book, aren’t I?

Looking at her blog a bit more I see that she has trademarked these ridiculous terms. Just, why?

If these words which I refuse to write on my Tumblr really are intended to be empowering for autistic girls and women, then why the fuck would you trademark them as your own intellectual property? It would be like trademarking the word “brunette” or “Jewish woman” or whatever.

Good thing these terms are so awful that I doubt anyone outside of this author will want to use them.

what is that “N” doing in there?!?!

It seems to me that if you wanted to make a portmanteau of “Asperger’s” or “Aspie” and “girl” (which, why would you do that when Asperger’s is an obsolete diagnosis anyway? but never mind that LOL) … “Aspergirl” is right there, hovering in front of your face, spelled out in neon lights!

But noooo, let’s put that weird N in there instead.

How does one even pronounce that monstrosity? Ass-pee-en-girl? Ass-peen-girl? Neither one sounds good to me….

As a side note, I really dislike “aspie” as a word on a purely aesthetic level, but somehow all of the variations I’ve seen are even worse.

But as for the content of your question, I suspect that is because there is already a book called “Aspergirls.” (Which is written by an autistic woman and is actually pretty decent for the most part.) This author clearly is big on marketing herself, and hence needed trademarkable terminology. Which she apparently found, in the form of this monstrosity.

In general I’m just highly suspicious of non-autistic people who want to make their living by teaching the world about autistic people. The mainstream autism world is so hyper-commercialized, and it just comes across as self-interested and smarmy.

It’s funny.. I was disappointed when I learned I didn’t qualify for an Asperger diagnosis, but only autistic disorder or maybe PDDNOS. I was disappointed because “aspie” sounded so much cooler than “autie” to me. And it reminded me of aspen trees. So I always really liked the term “aspie” and kind of resented having to be an “autie”. I got used to it though, I like “autie” now. But it took years.