Terms get distorted, tired, harmful – time to review the term NT
March29
It’s time to review the term NT. Sure it had its birth in good humor and satire, but its moved more and more to a space which makes me feel so very uncomfortable.
- as sayings like “the only good NT is a dead NT” are now circulating in AS populations
- as 1 in 150 people are on the autism spectrum and likely more
- as all non-autistic people have autistic moments and phases just as those with autism have some lesser autistic days and phases from time to time
- as NT has been commonly now associated with reverse prejudice and presumptions of being ‘mundane’
- as the concept of NT categorizes, recently even pathologises people rather than placing them on a scale from autistic to non-autistic
- as the term NT is separtist in a world in which we’re seeking inclusion
- as an egalitarian, could we stop using ‘NT’ which has got way past its useby
- as we wouldn’t want to be called ‘spaz’, ‘wierdo’, ‘freak’ by non-autistic people
so how about we call non-autistic people what they are – non-autistic people or non-auties.
it’s time.
Donna Williams *)
author, artist, composer, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.auties.org
An Aspie girlfriend and I have always used the term neorotypical, but not to refer to non-autistic people. Rather, just to refer to anyone who is really conservative, boring, judgmental, etc. whether they are autistc or not. The ‘neuro’ just suignifies how anal these people are about being typical.
Actually, it was the longest time before I even knew NT was supposed to mean someone who was non-autistic! Typical me to be behind on such things!
“The only good NT is a dead NT.”
That’s a little harsh. Proud to say I have never endorsed such a position. I have a lot of non-autistic friends. All awesome people.
In Nobody Nowhere I distinguished MY WORLDERS (those who lived largely in their own world) verses THE WORLDERS (those who were fixated on facades, appearances, social competition for status and power over others). Then in Somebody Somewhere I wrote about GADOODLEBORGERS who I explained were BRIDGEKEEPERS, TRANSLATORS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, the natural anthropologists who were by nature diversity friendly.
And among both autie and non-autie populations there are those who are more MY WORLDERS, those who are more THE WORLDERS and those who are more BRIDGEKEEPERS.
But people often embrace hatred. It’s a yang thing.
But a fierce drive for equality can also be just as yang.
🙂 Donna *)
I’m told that the terms Neuro-Typical and Neuro-Diverse were invented as a means of being able to discuss issues rather than as a form of bigotry, and if you break down the terms, the only (slightly) loaded word there is “typical”, which CAN be used as a fairly weak insult.
The problem with refering to “neurotypicals” as “non-autistic” is of course that the terms cover a slightly different group of people. “Neurodiverse” includes other groups such as manic depressives, schizophrenics, ADHDers, gays, lesbians and left handed people. Not that you ever hear the terms being used by or of those groups.
The term non-autistic kinda worries me a bit too. It’s like we don’t have a word for “white” so we refer to it as “non-black”, thereby confusing all the other colours on the spectrum.
Perhaps the termds Neuro-Divergent and Neuro-Convergent would have been better choices as they’re less loaded.
yes, the terms had noble origins for sure. The first time I ever heard the terms was Jim Sinclair in 1994. He’d previously used the terms in his writing.
even weak insults said with hateful tones can be powerful.
to refer to typicality as ‘mundane’ is as insulting as refering to all autistics as bores.
the current saying ‘a good NT is a dead NT’ is hardly a weak insult.
neuro-diverse, I much prefer that idea, but to me, it includes ANY human, usual or unusual.
I think people with autism have some less autistic moments and people who don’t have autism have some autistic ones. Therefore nobody is totally 100% either at all times, we may be 100% in some situations, with some people, during some phases etc and only 80% in others. For example how autistic is someone when trampolining or on a spinning ride. And how ‘autistic’ (the adjective) are many people when first doing public speaking or in their first day of their first ever job.
On the other hand, it’s sadly just as easy for such people to say “a good non-autistic person is a dead non-autistic person”. :-/
I get kind of peeved when I see a lot of us autistics vs. them kind of attitude. Not only that but when some people start treating the other end as if they are a different species…
Nice to see this article. I haven’t been lucky [read stumbled upon] with “the only good NT is a dead NT”. I agree such statements are hateful and likely not going to help anything at all.
As far as describing non-autistic people having “autistic” like behavior I don’t mean to say they have autistic moments, but I do find it helpful to describe some of the terms such as a person freaking out over a spider (socially acceptable meltdown) to a meltdown over a burnt out light (not socially acceptable meltdown). It’s my attempt at making people stop and think a little. Granted there are differences… I hope that is okay to do.
On another hot debate thing:
I think regardless of viewpoint whether pro cure or against cure, there are parents out there that need help understanding their kids. I see sometimes people coming from both ends attacking each other’s views… That goes nowhere except to irk a lot of people.
I don’t think anti-NT prejudice is a good reason to abandon the term. There’s nothing offensive about the term itself, just how some people use it, and they can use pretty much any term that way.
The one problem I do have with NT is that many people use it as if it’s the same thing as non-autistic, but a) non-autistic is broader, including people with other neurological differences as well as NTs, and b) NT is societally defined, and in a different society NT could be the same as autistic. I prefer ‘allistic’ which is the semantic opposite of autistic.
I just LOVE your word ALListic.
yay.
🙂
The thing about autism and asperger syndrome in particular is that people keep insisting that there’s a “glass wall” style divide rather than shades of gray between autistic spectrum and non-autistic people that you’re talking about.
The “mental connection” thing that non-autistic people seem to be able to share so readily amongst themselves fails at critical moments between the two groups, leaving people thinking that they don’t really know each other at all.
That usually isn’t a strange experience for autistic spectrum people, but my understanding is that it’s a huge shock for non-autistic people, and in and of itself, it can lead to non-autistic people pulling out of the relationship altogether.
great comment John.
yes, it’s so true.
interestingly, when through typing Aspies dialogue with those at the Kanners end of the spectrum
seems all is fine, egalitarian, cool
but when they meet each other, if the Kanners person has tics, bipolar stuff, ADHD stuff, Exposure Anxiety stuff
which makes it hard for them to be as obviously ‘intelligent’ as they’d seemed through typing
then the Aspies sometimes do get rather freaked.
It used to get me down, but now I love watching which ones STAY for those are the real egalitarians.
I think from the Kanners side, there’s a definite language PROCESSING barrier
which means that in typed communication they get time to process language easier
and in REAL time, face to face time, they don’t
so the intellectual verbosity of some Aspies in real-time just fries them.
Of course some Aspies accomodate this (and congrats to them 🙂 by slowing, condensing or demonstrating their blah through objects or gesture, or they reduce their long strings to bullet points.
But many Aspies just find this too much hard work.
So, you’re totally right, there are those ‘critical moments’ which are almost a glass wall in themselves at times
but the wall does shift.
And I certainly see those at the Kanners end of the spectrum having Aspie moments just as those at the Aspie end having Kanners moments.
I have never liked the term Kanner’s syndrome, but fact is it does help talk about which ends of the spectrum we’re comparing.
Even so, some who today are diagnosed with Asperger’s, originally appears to fit Kanner’s up to age 3-5.
And some who appeared to fit their diagnosis with Asperger’s had regressions where they later appeared to fit Kanner’s.
And there are many who are in nice tidy boxes too.
But, personally, I think the tidy boxes are rarely as tidy as they appear.
Yeah, I think the glass wall still largely exists between autistic spectrum people. What’s kinda cool about that though is that we can share common interests once we get over our fears and prejudices, and the glass wall hardly matters really.
I think my original point was that the glass wall tends to freak non-autistic people out. Without “getting” what’s happening in a persons mind, the person becomes unpredictable to them, and therefore something to fear, whether they’ve done something wrong or not.
I’d like to get into contact with both NT’s and Kanner’s autistics to compare and see where my thought processes lie. It’d be interesting to see if there’s any common ground so to speak and see what is different. I think that may help tear down a lot of that glass wall. It’s always been one of my desires to learn about the world around me even before I knew to talk. I remember exploring things and pondering as a child even after I was verbal. Once I learned how to ask “Why?” and “How” that seemed to open up a whole world.
The way it’s been for me is that I hardly relate to most aspies as it were even though it’s my diagnoses. I’m
talkative but in a different way than the people I’ve interacted with, more prone to comforting myself with my
own voice.
I have had the pleasure to meet one other relatively like myself and a few online that seem to be so. But
when I notice it I can feel just as left out with ‘aspies’ as with ‘NTs’. We do have some things in common but
enough things not in common to be obvious to me. Like with language. I’m actually not very prone to sharing
ANYTHING of ‘substance’ much rather lecturing. I repeat what I’ve read. That’s 85% of my language basically.Th
The other 15% is a mix of things I’ve actually come up with myself and things I’ve heard (primarily on TV).
I so relate.
As a kid I had LOTS of songs, jingles and by late childhood big chunks from TV sit coms. I began to use the one word-one meaning system by late childhood and by 13 could do 2 hour descriptive litanies (and then he picked up the sharpener and she said, that’s mine, and Mr. Smith said, Mary get back to your seat….). So by 17 I could do small tads of seemingly interactive speech and topic matching but mostly I yabbered to myself and yes, just calmed by the sound of my own blah… it also closed out the disturbing blah of others and it was in so many past stored voices it felt like a full conversation anyway.
Often when speaking I couldn’t understand the meaning in my own words so it often became pretty obscure and certainly repetitive, but I began to kep up with the meaning of my own speech once I started fluently using gestural signing in my 20s (it was used around me by my father since I was a toddler and in late childhood my mother began using it to direct me). At 30 I went on 2000mg Glutamine and got enough extra ability to process receptive language that I could now hold sense of self, sense of other, meaning of their speech and my own for about 20-30 min. I was astounded this reality existed and wrote of it in Everyday Heaven. But the ability now drops in and out, so I now CAN do interactive speech but it’s still harder work for me than most people so I generally don’t choose it or only in smallish doses with people I really like and am used to or for good purposes.
At the autie friendly dinners (see http://www.auties.org) the Aspies require people to keep up with the meaning of their blah which I can do in small bursts, but I do tend to trail off really easy and it tires me. Some autie folk go and I prefer their largely self directed blah as I can listen in and out and make matches and do my own litany for a while, or get into lists or talk telegraphically in ‘bullet points’. But I can’t be around long strings of other people’s self blah either as I can’t filter it and my brain gets full and heavy and I want to scream. Headphones are essential for those who live with people who enjoy the comfort of constant self blah.
🙂