The shift from the pathology paradigm to the neurodiversity paradigm calls for a radical shift in language, because the appropriate language for discussing medical problems is quite different from the appropriate language for discussing diversity.
THROW AWAY THE MASTER’S TOOLS: LIBERATING OURSELVES FROM THE PATHOLOGY PARADIGM
In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change.
The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
When we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.
Terror comes in many forms and one powerful expression is when people become too fearful to develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live. Not only does such linguistic deprivation fail to ward off the plague of propaganda, but it also contributes ‘to an annihilation of the self and the destruction of the capacity to recognize the real world’.
Giroux, Henry A.. Pedagogy of Resistance (p. 31). Bloomsbury Publishing.
Language is also a place of struggle.
—bell hooks, Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness
“Language is also a place of struggle.” “Thinking differently requires speaking differently.” “Develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live.”
People often take issue against the terms used by marginalized people. We experience this in our advocacy regarding Identity First Language and the terms neurodivergent and neurotypical. These terms were coined to examine power and privilege, which is exactly what some don’t like about them.
Our glossary grows rapidly. We’re defining the small truths and the big truths of our daily existence.
Post-truth is pre-fascism.
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 71). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.
“Language is also a place of struggle.”
“Thinking differently requires speaking differently.“
“Develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live.”
All Glossary Entries
- Ableism
- Acceptance
- Access Intimacy
- Accommodation
- Addiction
- ADHD Tax
- Advice Process
- Alexithymia
- Alien
- Allistic
- Aloneness
- Alt Text
- Alternative and Augmentative Communication
- Altruism
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Anti-library
- Art
- Artificial Intelligence
- Asynchronous Communication
- Autigender
- Autism
- Autism Warrior Parent
- Autistic Language Hypothesis
- Autistic Rhizome
- Canary
- Care
- Cavendish Space
- Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes
- Change
- Checklists
- Childism
- Chosen Family
- Chronic
- Co-regulation
- Coddle
- Code
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Collaborative Morality
- Comedy
- Commonplace Book
- Community
- Compassion
- Competency Network
- Conceptual Portmanteau
- Constructionism
- Created Serendipity
- Crip
- Crip Linguistics
- Crip Tax
- Crip Time
- Cripple Punk
- Critical Race Theory
- Critical Thinking
- Critical Wellness
- Cyborg
- Samefood
- School-Induced Anxiety
- Self-Determination Theory
- Self-Injurious Stimming
- Sensory Hell
- Sensory Trauma
- Shame
- Situational Mutism
- Sleep
- Social Model of Disability
- Solarpunk
- Spaced Repetition
- Special Interest
- Special Needs
- Spiky Profile
- Spoon Theory
- Stigma
- Stimming
- Stimpunk
- Strategic Essentialism
- Straws
- Structural Ideology
- Subtype
- Support Swapping