I know I've written about this before, but for me it's a very important point that cannot be discussed often enough. It's one of those topics that makes a real distinction be known between parents of autistic children and autistic children themselves. It's the topic of 'name-giving', 'definition' and so on.

On an online forum there has been several debates, finally emerging into a thread of its own whether or not one should say 'person with autism' or 'autistic'. It seems to be that the parents are all for the first, while the afflicted themselves prefer the latter.

Instead of trying to arrange the thoughts in my heads, I'd like to refer to the words of Jim Sinclair, which I was just recently made aware of through Coming out Asperger - Diagnosis, Disclosure and Self-Confidence (and if you haven't already, you should pick up a copy). At the same time, it makes me happy to see that he uses the argumentative style as I've done previously, in "Thoughts on words" and online elsewhere, where I've argued that I am, for instance, "a photographer" and not simply "someone who takes pictures".