Current Debates on Autism Language Preferences: An Overview

Debates on the language used to describe autism have intensified in recent years. A key issue in this area has centered on how to address autistic people, which has focused on two perspectives: person-first language (PFL, that is, person with disability) and identity-first language (IFL, that is, disabled person). Advocates of both person-first and identity-first language have the common goal of using language to encourage respectful communication in order to move away from pathology-first language that views autism in a deficit context. However, no consensus has been reached on language preferences around autism. This chapter provides an overview of current debates on autism language preferences over three sections. Firstly, the history of factors that led to the current impasse on person-first language versus identity-first language is outlined. A critical review of research investigating the language preferences of the autistic community is presented. The final section considers additional language considerations and potential future directions for research on language preferences, including language issues beyond the person−/identity-first debate. The final section also considers some of the limitations of existing research on language preferences in the autism community and briefly outlines avenues for future research in this area.