Archives: Glossary

  • Ableism

    Ableism

    able·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ noun A system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are […]

  • Acceptance

    Acceptance means training mental health service providers to look at autism and other disabilities as a part of a person’s identity, rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. Acceptance […]

  • Access Intimacy

    Access intimacyAccess intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs. The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on […]

  • Accommodation

    Accommodation is fundamentally about not changing the person but changing the environment around the person. Normal Sucks: Author Jonathan Mooney on How Schools Fail Kids with Learning Differences Yet on a […]

  • Addiction

     If addiction is like misguided love, then compassion is a far better approach than punishment. Can You Get Over an Addiction? – The New York Times In her book Unbroken […]

  • ADHD Tax

    ADHD Tax

    ADHD Tax The extra costs those with diagnosable inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and/or executive functionExecutive functionThe psychological ability to get things done.Autistic Glossary – AMASE Executive Function (n) is a set […]

  • Advice Process

    Almost all Teal organizations use, in one form or another, what an early practitioner (AES) called the “advice processAlmost all Teal organizations use, in one form or another, what an […]

  • Alexithymia

    Alexithymia (also called emotional blindnessAlexithymia (also called emotional blindness) is a condition where you have challenges identifying and describing emotions in the self. Essentially, alexithymia is a difference in emotion processing.The alexithymia […]

  • Alien

    Alien

    I believe all persons with Autism need the opportunity to become friends with other Autistic people. Without this contact we feel alien to this world. We feel lonely. Feeling like […]

  • Allistic

    The term ‘allistic’ is a synonym for ‘non-autistic’. The term ‘neurotypical’ is used to describe individuals with typical neurological development or functioning. Notably, this term is not an exact synonym […]

  • Aloneness

    Aloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can […]

  • Alt Text

    Alt text is a written description of an image posted online. Alt text can also be added to images embedded in digital documents (PDFs, Word documents, Google docs, presentations, etc). […]