El lenguaje del autismo (The Language of Autism)
Major
Hispanic Studies
Submission Type
Poster
Area of Study or Work
Hispanic Studies(Spanish)
Expected Graduation Date
2023
Location
CNS Atrium, Easel 19
Start Date
4-15-2023 9:00 AM
End Date
4-15-2023 10:15 AM
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate on the language and terminology that should be used when describing individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many people who are autistic prefer identity/diversity-first language. This means they prefer saying “autistic people” rather than “person with autism.” Meanwhile, many professions in the psychology fields prefer person-first language, meaning they prefer to describe this population as “people with autism” instead of “autistic people.” There have been linguistic studies on preferences in terminology for describing ASD in other countries, such as Australia, the UK, Uruguay and the US, but there has not yet been an official study on this topic in Spain. Therefore, my project involves looking into Spanish non-fiction literature to search for trends and preferences used by Spanish authors who write about ASD. In doing this, I am focusing on two books that provide different perspectives but that use notably different language to describe ASD despite both being written in 2019. I found that Mujeres dentro del espectro, written by autistic women, preferred identity-first language, while La vida en orden alfabético, written by two psychologists, preferred person-first language. This appears to provide evidence that the trend in language preferences for ASD seen in other countries is also applicable to Spain.
El lenguaje del autismo (The Language of Autism)
CNS Atrium, Easel 19
There is an ongoing debate on the language and terminology that should be used when describing individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many people who are autistic prefer identity/diversity-first language. This means they prefer saying “autistic people” rather than “person with autism.” Meanwhile, many professions in the psychology fields prefer person-first language, meaning they prefer to describe this population as “people with autism” instead of “autistic people.” There have been linguistic studies on preferences in terminology for describing ASD in other countries, such as Australia, the UK, Uruguay and the US, but there has not yet been an official study on this topic in Spain. Therefore, my project involves looking into Spanish non-fiction literature to search for trends and preferences used by Spanish authors who write about ASD. In doing this, I am focusing on two books that provide different perspectives but that use notably different language to describe ASD despite both being written in 2019. I found that Mujeres dentro del espectro, written by autistic women, preferred identity-first language, while La vida en orden alfabético, written by two psychologists, preferred person-first language. This appears to provide evidence that the trend in language preferences for ASD seen in other countries is also applicable to Spain.
Comments
The author earned University Research Honors for this work; see https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/hispstu_honproj/13