We know it can be difficult to know what language to use when discussing autism! For that reason, we’ve created these resource pages. You can read them here on our website or download and share the PDF versions. Autism researchers, you may also benefit from this study about avoiding ableist language in your work.

Also see the results here of a survey completed by the Organization for Autism Research. OAR surveyed 1,000 people, including more than 800 self-advocates, about their opinion on identify-first. vs. person-first language. The survey group overwhelmingly preferred identity-first language.

Person-first vs. identity-first language (PDF)

Neurodiversity Vocab (PDF)