Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Autism. 2023 Apr;27(3):788-795. doi: 10.1177/13623613221117914. Epub 2022 Aug 11.
There are different words to describe people with an autism diagnosis. For instance, we can put the person before autism (e.g. 'person with autism'), or we can put autism before the person (e.g. 'autistic person'). Previous research showed that autistic adults in English-speaking countries generally liked it better when autism is placed before the person. Yet, people also greatly differ in the words they like and dislike. In this study, we examined word preference in Dutch autistic adults ( = 1026; 16-84 years; 57% women) and parents of autistic children ( = 286). Via an online questionnaire, we asked our participants to select one term for autistic people that they liked best. The results showed that most adults with autism (68.3%) and parents (82.5%) preferred to put the person before autism. Younger adults, with a higher intelligence, and with more autistic traits, were a bit more likely to put autism before the person. We conclude that there are large differences in the words that people prefer. Because we found different results in our Dutch participants compared to participants in English-speaking countries, we think that the Dutch language or culture may also play a role in word preference. For now, we advise autism researchers to use both person-first and autism-first language.
有不同的词来描述被诊断为自闭症的人。例如，我们可以把人放在自闭症之前（例如“自闭症患者”），或者把自闭症放在人之前（例如“自闭症人士”）。先前的研究表明，英语国家的自闭症成年人通常更喜欢把自闭症放在人之前。然而，人们对喜欢和不喜欢的词也有很大的不同。在这项研究中，我们调查了荷兰自闭症成年人（ = 1026；16-84 岁；57%女性）和自闭症儿童家长（ = 286）的用词偏好。通过在线问卷，我们要求参与者选择一个他们最喜欢的自闭症人群的术语。结果表明，大多数自闭症成年人（68.3%）和家长（82.5%）更喜欢把人放在自闭症之前。年龄较小、智力较高、自闭症特征较多的成年人更倾向于把自闭症放在人之前。我们得出的结论是，人们喜欢的词有很大的差异。由于我们在荷兰参与者身上发现的结果与英语国家的参与者不同，我们认为荷兰语或文化也可能在词的偏好中起作用。目前，我们建议自闭症研究人员同时使用“人先于自闭症”和“自闭症先于人”的语言。
