How The Myth of “High-Functioning” Autism is Hurting the Community
The rhetoric surrounding the autism spectrum has expanded from when it first surfaced, understanding of the condition has expanded along with it. Unfortunately, this rhetoric and these terms have often been coined by people who aren’t on the autism spectrum, because of how autism affects communication of the individual. This is explored in Ari Ne’eman’s piece “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic perspectives about the autism spectrum”, in which she takes a look into the different voices that try to craft the narrative of the autism community. At one particular point, she talks about how neurotypical people walk the line between love and supposed hatred of the people they know who are autistic. She talks specifically about how Carolyn See talks about her grandson’s autism. “They describe their autistic traits in a positive as well as negative lights, as See mentions her grandson’s singing-a clear sign of echolalia-shows. So why do they persist in demonizing autism as an exclusively negative force-not to mention marginalizing the autistic narrative of autism?” This trend of picking favorite parts of characteristics of autism (See’s son singing) and condemning other cases is most prominent in the terminology “high-functioning” autism and “low-functioning autism”. “High-functioning” being those who have less noticeable characteristics of autism, and “low-functioning” being those who have more. These terms not only create a rift of comparison in the autism community itself, but they also carry the connotation that “high-functioning autism” is the more socially acceptable diagnosis because it is more familiar to neurotypical people.
Ari Ne’eman best explains it when she states in the abstract for “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic perspectives about the Autism Spectrum” about how the language used to describe people with autism isn’t made for people with autism. “The current models of representation used in reference to autism in popular culture, policymaking and literature predominantly focus on how autistic individuals affect neurotypical society and neurotypicals.” When an autistic person is deemed “high-functioning”, it is because the characteristics of their autism are not as evident, in which they deem the erasure of the individual’s autism as them being a “high-functioning”. The ideation of a “high-functioning” autistic is heavily favored, which is made especially clear in how autistic people are portrayed in the media. If there is an autistic person portrayed, their characteristics are almost exclusively that they do not understand tone and are “adorably” uncomfortable with physical contact. In the even rarer cases that the characters autism is expanded on, the viewership is constantly reminded of how the character has to overcome their autism and how hard it makes their life. It sends the clear message that “high-functioning” is the right way to be autistic. When “low-functioning” is portrayed by the media, it is usually a heart-breaking movie with the autistic person used as a crutch for the character development of the main character, but they always make the characters life hard, and this sends a clear message to the public that this is the wrong way to be autistic, and that people who are “low-functioning” autistic are merely stepping stones to becoming a better person. While not all narratives about a certain type of person have to be the same, there has not been an in-between.
Because of the high and low terms, it sets up a scale of comparison between the autism community, which makes room for gatekeeping and hate within the community, which Ne’eman points out when talking about Temple Grandin, who is famously diagnosed with “high-functioning” autism, “is only opposed to a “cure” for people like her and Asperger’s.” There is no saying as to if Grandin would still take this stance if she had been diagnosed with “low-functioning” autism, but just showing this disdain for people in her own community shows how damaging the comparison is. Because of the terms, there is an obvious and noticeable bias as to what is preferred in society, and whether it is conscious or not, there will be an ingrained bias in whoever hears “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” because it is obvious which one is more acceptable.
There is no definite origin of the term “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” but there is no doubt that it was coined by a neurotypical person. The term originally applied to autistic people who “were deemed to be cognitively ‘higher functioning’ (with an IQ of 70 or greater) than other people with autism” (Wikipedia), however, since the term has been applied to autistic people who have shown trouble with communication instead of cognitive thinking, such as Amanda Baggs who was mentioned in Ne’eman’s “Dueling Narratives” in responding to Grandin’s want for a cure, who is an autistic blogger that primarily communicates through typing. She is shown to be able to understand and respond to abstract ideas and thinking cognitively, but because of her lack of traditional communication, she is labeled as “low-functioning”. The reason for this is because she is “low-functioning” compared to the ideation of neurotypical people. Simply branding her as a “low-functioning” human being allows for the invalidation of her communication type and for society to brush off trying to develop a type of communication with her.
Since the supposed “low-functioning” narrative is so easy to be dismissive of, campaigns such as AutismSpeaks or War Against autism can easily take advantage of the narrative to twist it into this tragedy that parents and family go through, and society has seemed to just accept it. Ne’eman touches on this when she discusses the documentaries made about the mothers who killed their autistic children because they believed it was for the best. “There exists substantial support for the idea that the murder of autistic children-and adults-is justifiable and constitutes a form of “mercy killings” that should be met with leniency and even encouragement.” The next of the piece has Professor Richard Sobsey disagreeing with this statement completely, but just the idea that this reasoning exists shows how much hate is hidden behind the idea of branding someone as a “low-functioning” autistic person. This kind of rhetoric would never surround a child in a wheelchair, or a child who was born mute. It is also doubtful that a child who was born mute or born without the use of their legs would ever be deemed as “low-functioning”, even if they were being compared to another individual who was only partially mute or on was able to move with the use of crutches.
With the increase of representation that autism is getting in media today, using problematic terminology along with the old ways of thinking about does more to hurt the community instead of trying to help it. The term “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” would never be used when talking about a person who was born deaf or blind, and this type of comparison would never be accepted if it were between two people who were in a wheel chair, so the fact that it is still deemed acceptable for people on the autism spectrum shows an obvious bias against them. In erasing the terminology about them and instead create terminology for them, it will take one step forward in creating a more inclusive and understanding environment for individuals on the spectrum.
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Citations:
Ne’eman, Ari. “Dueling Narratives: Neurotypical and Autistic Perspectives about the Autism Spectrum.” Neeman SAMLA 2007, The Autism Self-Advocacy Network, case.edu/affil/sce/Texts_2007/Neeman.html.
“High-Functioning Autism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-functioning_autism.
