Ableism — the practices or dominant attitudes by a society that devalue or limit the potential for people with disabilities.
#ActuallyAutistic — a hashtag created to highlight the importance of autistic voices and content about autistic people.
Applied Behavioural Therapy (ABA) – a behaviour modification intervention used particularly with autistic children who struggle with communication and self-regulation. There is little support for it from the autistic community and individuals who are put through it.
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD – when a person shows persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity–impulsivity that interferes with day-to-day functioning and/or development. Many don’t see this as a disorder, instead see it as having differences
ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) – a standardised assessment of communication, social interaction, and play or imaginative use of materials for people who may be autistic. The ADOS does not look at developmental data and only considers current behaviour and skills.
Agnosia – a condition that impacts a person’s ability to recognise of accurately interpret sensory information, despite having the ability to perceive sensory information.
Alexithymia – when a person has difficulty in recognising and interpreting emotions. Many autistic people have alexithymia.
Alternormative — types of social and communication norms that exist outside of neurotypical groups.
Anxiety – a mental health condition characterised by a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear that can be mild or severe. It becomes a clinical condition when experienced for a prolonged period of time and when it has a significant impact on a person’s life. Many autistic people experience high levels of anxiety.
Aphantasia – a condition that effects a person’s ability to form mental images of objects that are not present. Otherwise known as image-free thinking
Apraxia – a motor planning condition that impacts a person’s ability to execute or carry out purposeful, coordinated movement and gestures, despite having the physical ability and desire to perform them.
Asperger Syndrome – a diagnosis that was used until recently used for some autistic people who do not have a learning difficulty. See function labels and spiky profile for why this is a problem. It is no longer recognised by the ADOS, everyone with autism is autistic and there is no need for a separate term. The term Asperger’s is now considered controversial due to Hans Asperger, who worked with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) – another term for autism. Many autistic people do not use it as they are uncomfortable with the use of the word ‘disorder’.
ASC (Autism Spectrum Condition) – another term for autism. Many autistic people do not use it as they are uncomfortable with the use of the word ‘condition’.
Autism – a basic and fundamental brain difference. Autistic people think, move, interact, sense and process differently to non-autistic people. Autism generally affects the way people, socialise, communicate, think and process.
Autist — an autistic person in the singular form.
Autistic ally – someone who stands up for, supports and encourages autistic rights for either an individual autistic person or the autistic community at large.
Burnout – an intense a period of intense sensory, social, emotional, and physical overwhelm which results in exhaustion. In burnout people also experience difficulties with executive functioning, memory, attention, and there may be a change of capacity in the ability to communicate and regulate sensory input. Burnout generally occurs after long periods of unmet needs.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) – a talking therapy that can be helpful in treating some aspects of being neurodiverse including anxiety and depression. It helps people to recognise and understand how their behaviours, thoughts and emotions effect each other.
Depression – a mental health condition that is common in autistic people and often occurs with other conditions such as anxiety. Symptoms include feelings of hopelessness and physical symptoms, such as always feeling tired. Depression can have a big impact on daily life and can lead to suicidal thoughts.
Differbility/Diffability — differbility and Diffability is the combination of the words “different” and “ability.” “an alternative to the word “disability” intended to remove the term’s negative connotations of disabilities.”
Dyscalculia: difficulties related to understanding numbers and difficulties with maths
Dysgraphia: difficulties with writing skills, letter formation, can affect spelling and word choice (other fine motor skills may be efficient)
Dyslexia: a specific learning disability that means you have significant difficulties with reading, writing and spelling.
Dyspraxia: difficulties with movement, balance and coordination. It can also affect planning and processing of motor tasks.
Echolalia — when an autistic person with autism repeats something they hear back to another person. Sometimes called “movie talk” or “scripting”.
Executive functioning – a set of skills that include the ability to manage yourself, plan, organise and carry out tasks to meet a goal (e.g., washing, dressing, cooking, organising & carrying out work.
Function labels – the idea of describing autistic people according to their ability to function in society, usually high or low functioning. Calling people with autism high- or low-functioning can be invalidating and is outdated thinking. See ‘spiky profile’.
Info-dumping: a term often used to describe an autistic person sharing their deep knowledge and enthusiasm of their special interests, often involving communicating on this one topic for long periods of time in a single session.
Hyper-empathy – when a person experiences an increased ability to tune into the emotions and feelings of others, causing them to experience an intense emotional response and distress. Hyper-empathy is common amongst autistic people and this reaction can be intense can cause physical pain and emotional distress.
Hyperlexia — when a person has the ability to read at a very young age. Individuals with hyperlexia are shown to be adept and precocious readers and can have incredible abilities of memorization and retention.
Hypersensitivity/Hyperresponsiveness — a more intense / heightened response to sensory stimuli, to the point it could feel very uncomfortable or even painful (e.g., light / sound / taste / touch /smell / movement/pain).
Hyposensitivity/Hyporesponsiveness — a lower response to sensory stimuli, may be unaware of pain or not as responsive as you may expect (e.g., light / sound / taste / touch /smell / movement/pain).
Interoception – a sense that helps a person understand what is going on inside their body. This includes physical states (hunger, thirst, feeling hot or cold, feeling pain) and emotional states (anxiety, anger, fear, excitement). Struggling with interoception makes self-regulation difficult because it’s harder to recognize and respond to your body’s signals.
Masking – hiding or suppressing parts of autistic / ADHD identity / behaviour to fit in with others, for example by not stimming or talking about special interests.
Meltdown – an intense response to a situation which is causing high levels of anxiety. It happens when someone becomes completely overwhelmed and temporarily loses control of their behaviour. A meltdown causes increased levels of anxiety and distress which are often interpreted as frustration, a ‘tantrum’ or a panic attack.
Mutism – can be selective or situational and refers to people who can speak, but can’t always speak in every situation. Many– if not most– autistic people experience mutism to a degree. Mutism is not the same as having nonspeaking or minimally speaking apraxia, but is an anxiety and/or trauma-induced condition.
Neurodivergent (ND) — a person who has atypical neurological configurations. (e.g., an autistic person).
Neurodiverse — a group of people where some members of the group are neurodivergent.
Neurodiversity — the concept that there is diversity in how human brains are wired and work, and that neurological differences should be valued in the same way we value any other human variation. This includes any condition that demonstrates atypical neurological configurations including autism, ADHD, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyspraxia.
Neurodiversity movement — a social justice movement seeking equality, respect, inclusion, and civil rights for people with neurodiversity. The term neurodiversity was developed in 1998 by Judy Singer, an autistic sociologist.
Neurotypical (NT) — a style of neurocognitive functioning that falls within the dominant societal standards of “normal.” Neurotypical can be used as either an adjective (“They’re neurotypical”) or a noun (“They are a neurotypical”).
Neuromajority – (sometimes referred to as neurotypical -although the idea of there being a ‘typical’ mind is sometimes debated) – often used to describe people that are not neurodivergent.
Neurominority — an underrepresented group of Neurodiverse people who may face challenges or bias from society.
Non-speaking – many autistic people are nonspeaking, usually because of a condition called apraxia. Motor planning is the ability to execute purposeful movement. Because speech needs multiple areas of the brain to make speech happen, having low connectivity to any of those parts may make speech unreliable. Most non-speakers prefer the term “nonspeaking” over “nonverbal” because they have the capacity to understand and produce words, just not with speech.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – a mental health problem consisting of two connected parts: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwelcome thoughts, feelings, images, urges, worries or doubts that keep coming into your mind. Compulsions are repetitive things that you do to reduce the distress or uncertainty caused by obsessions. Compulsions can be things you do physically, like repeatedly checking a door is locked. Or they can be things you do in your head, like repeating a specific word to yourself.
Overwhelm – many autistic people experience overwhelm as a result of overload. This can be sensory (too much noise or visual information to process) or emotional (too many intense emotions). It may lead to meltdown, shutdown or burnout.
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) – see Pervasive Drive for Autonomy
Pervasive Drive for Autonomy (PDA) / sometimes referred to as Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), although this has negative connotations in the language used. PDA is a profile of autism, in which a person’s anxiety causes them to avoid everyday demands at an extreme level.
Proprioception – also called kinaesthesia, is the body’s ability to sense and understand its location, movements, and actions. (performing simultaneous physical actions with multiple body parts, controlling posture).
Prosody – the rhythm, tone and melody of speech, expressed through pitch, stress, rate, inflection and intonation. Autistic people often struggle with this.
Scripting – repeating phrases, words, intonations or sounds that have been introduced by others. This might include repeating dialogue from movies, TV and other media.
Sensory avoidance – a sensory avoider may feel overwhelmed and upset by sensory input and seek to avoid specific stimulation. They may struggle with bright or buzzing lights, loud noises, physical contact or wearing certain clothing (clothes that feel scratchy or have stiff tags).
Sensory processing – sensory processing issues occur when the brain has difficulty receiving and organizing information that comes through the senses. It is often seen in people who are neurodivergent. The two main types are sensory seeking and sensory avoiding. As well as the five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch), other types of sensory inputs include interoception, proprioception and vestibular.
Sensory seeking – a sensory seeker may feel under-stimulated or need specific types of interaction to feel calm or grounded. To rectify feelings of discomfort, they may deliberately look for specific sensory experiences. These can include things like rough play with physical impact, having a high pain tolerance, seeking a spicy or sour taste, holding objects with excessive pressure.
Shutdown – an intense response to a situation which is causing high levels of anxiety. It happens when someone becomes completely overwhelmed by their current situation, often ones with high social, emotional or sensory demand. It may result in a reduced ability to process what is going on, and the person may struggle to communicate as they normally do, they may be mute or have difficulty forming coherent sentences.
Special interest – many autistic people have special interests; these are interests and activities that the person finds fascinating or compelling, that they love to spend time learning about, thinking about or doing.
Spiky profile – referring to the Spiky Profile that describes how many autistic people excel at some things (to the point of being expert) whilst simultaneously struggling with other things (to the point of needing support and accommodations). This can be much more pronounced in neurodivergent people than in neurotypical people, whose brains operate in a more consistent way.
Spicy profile – a fun way of describing the spiky profile.
Spoon theory / spoon metaphor – a disability metaphor used to explain the reduced amount of mental and physical energy available for activities for living and productive tasks that may result from disability or chronic illness. Spoons are units of energy and each daily activity, regardless of how trivial it may seem to a typically-functioning person, costs a certain number of spoons. Once all the day’s spoons are used, one must rest and replenish their spoon supply.
Stimming – short for self-stimulatory behaviour, stimming is sensory seeking behaviours that help to regulate the mind and body. Stimming might include rocking, spinning, shaking hands etc.).Stimming should not be stopped unless it is harming the individual or another person, then a replacement behaviour should be substituted.
Synaesthesia – defined as a joining of the senses, where one sensory experience activates another sensory experience. Music may trigger colours, or words may trigger tastes. A person with synaesthesia can see sounds, smell colours, taste shapes, feel sounds on the skin, hear colours. The prevalence of synaesthesia is higher amongst autistic people.
Tics – fast, repetitive involuntary muscle movements that result in sudden body jolts or vocalisations. When tics have lasted more than a year they are called Tourette’s Syndrome.
Tourette’s Syndrome — a condition that usually starts in childhood and causes uncontrollable motor or vocal tics.
Transition — a change from one activity to the next, or from one environment to another. Autistic people struggle with transitions. Explanations and social stories can help.
Triad of impairments — an autism theory that identifies neurological characteristics that affect communication, imagination, and social interactions.
Vestibular sense: The sense of body rotation, gravity, and movement (balance, coordination).
Visual schedule — a tool that helps a person with autism know what to expect next in a series of activities.