AAB Glossary (Alphabetical by Term)
Start here if a term feels unfamiliar, misused or heavier than it looks. These definitions aren’t official. They’re honest. You may not need all of them, but you’ll know when you do. Here they are:
Ableism/Ableist
Discrimination — structural, social, or internalized — against disabled people. It shows up in policies, in attitudes, and in how people decide what kinds of bodies or minds are worth accommodating. Naming it doesn’t divide us. It helps us survive.
Access Intimacy
A term from Mia Mingus describing the rare but vital trust that comes from being known in your access needs—without having to constantly explain or apologize.
Access Needs
Conditions required for someone to participate fully—sensory, emotional, physical, communicative. Not special. Not extra. Just needs.
Animal Models
Common in autism science, often criticized for reducing autism to observable behaviors while excluding lived experience. While some biological insights can be gained, these models risk oversimplification—especially when autistic voices are missing from the framing.
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
Rooted in behaviorist principles, often using reinforcement to shape actions. Many autistic people critique ABA as compliance-based and potentially harmful—especially when autonomy, consent, or long-term well-being are not prioritized. Some families report benefit, but the practice remains deeply contested.
Asperger’s
A now-retired diagnostic label once used for autistic people without intellectual disability or speech delay. Many of us grew up with it. Some still identify with it. But the term carries baggage — not just from its use to divide the spectrum, but from Hans Asperger’s Nazi-era affiliations and the eugenic context of his work.
Aspie
A reclaimed shorthand for someone diagnosed—or self-identifying—as having Asperger’s. Still used by many autistic people, especially those who grew up with the label before it was retired. It carries community meaning for some and exclusionary baggage for others. Like any identity term, its use depends on consent and context.
Using the word today isn’t wrong. But we should name where it came from — and who got left out when it was used to define who counted as “acceptable.”
Autism
A neurodevelopmental difference affecting perception, communication and interaction. Not a defect—just a different way of being. Still comes with challenges, especially in a world not built for us.
Autistic Burnout
Deep exhaustion from chronic stress, sensory overload, or relentless masking. Not just tired—systemically depleted.
Autistic Pain
Not always physical. Includes the pain of exclusion, misrepresentation, and being asked to change just to be allowed to stay.
Biomarker
A measurable biological signal researchers link to conditions like autism. Useful in theory—but can reduce complex human experience to data points.
Challenging Behavior
A term that usually means “behavior that challenges adults.” Often signals distress, not defiance. If behavior is communication, then “challenging” means something’s being missed.
Co-occurring Conditions
When someone has more than one diagnosis (like autism and anxiety). This term can imply autism is the “main problem,” downplaying how conditions interact. Real support requires a full view of the person, not a hierarchy of labels.
Compliance Culture
The idea that a “good” autistic person is one who obeys, blends in, and doesn’t make demands. It’s praised in classrooms, clinics, and workplaces. But it leads to burnout, silence, and erasure.
Deficit Framing
Even when tone is kind, if the research starts from what autistic people lack, it won’t see what we are.
Deficit-Based Model
Frames autism in terms of what's “wrong” or “missing.” Still baked into much of mainstream research and therapy.
Developmental Delay
Often used to describe kids who aren’t meeting neurotypical milestones on schedule. But whose schedule counts? For autistic people, difference is not always delay—and “catching up” is not always the goal.
Diagnostic Creep
When diagnostic boundaries expand to include more people or traits. Sometimes helpful—but also used to justify over-pathologizing or over-monitoring.
Digestive Distress
Sometimes dismissed as “just a symptom,” but often connected to stress, masking, and sensory overload. Not all pain is GI. Not all GI pain is genetic.
Evidence-Based
Often used to justify practices like ABA. But “evidence” depends on what’s being measured—and who’s left out.
Functioning (as a verb)
Many autistic people say this ourselves—“I’m not functioning today.” That’s real. But in clinical and public settings, it’s often used to judge who deserves support. Functioning changes with stress, access, and how safe we feel.
Functioning Labels
Terms like “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” that reduce people to perceived ability. Often ignore real support needs or dismiss lived struggle.
Genetic Disruption
A loaded way to describe neurodivergence—as though difference is always disorder. Often reinforces the idea that autistic people are broken at the cellular level.
High-Functioning
See High-/Low-Functioning.
High-/Low-Functioning
Oversimplified labels that obscure complexity. Frequently used to silence autistic people by deciding who’s “too able” or “too impaired” to speak.
Identity-First Language
See Person-First vs. Identity-First Language.
Internalized Erasure
What happens when you start to believe the world’s low expectations—or its silence—about you.
Lived Experience
Knowledge from actually being autistic—not just studying autism. Valuable even when messy or subjective.
Low-Functioning
See High-/Low-Functioning.
Masking
Suppressing autistic traits to seem “normal.” Can help us survive—but often comes at a cost.
Medical Model
See Medical Model vs. Social Model.
Medical Model vs. Social Model
Medical: Disability is an internal flaw to be fixed. Social: Disability arises from external barriers. Neither is perfect, but the social model listens more than it diagnoses.
Medicalization
The process of turning difference into disorder. Often limits who’s seen as credible, and who’s seen as a case.
Meltdown
See Meltdown vs. Tantrum.
Meltdown vs. Tantrum
A meltdown is a loss of control from overload. A tantrum is a calculated attempt to get something. They’re not the same.
Narrative Control
Who gets to define autism—and who gets erased in the process.
Neurodivergent
Describes people whose minds work differently from the statistical norm—includes autistic people, ADHDers, and others. Not a diagnosis. Not a flaw. A fact of human variation.
Neurodiversity
The idea that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are natural human variations. A fact—and a movement for respect.
Neurotypical
Someone whose brain development aligns with social norms. Often used in contrast to “neurodivergent.”
Neurotypical Control Group
The baseline group in a study, usually non-autistic. Sets up neurotypical functioning as the standard and autistic difference as deviation.
Nonverbal
See Nonverbal / Nonspeaking.
Nonverbal / Nonspeaking
Often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Nonverbal is a clinical label; nonspeaking is a self-description that centers choice and communication rights.
Nonspeaking
See Nonverbal / Nonspeaking.
Participatory Research
Research with autistic people—not just on us. Ethical, overdue, and still too rare.
Pathology
The language of disease. Autism gets pathologized when it’s treated not as a way of being, but as an error in need of repair.
Person-First Language
See Person-First vs. Identity-First Language.
Person-First vs. Identity-First Language
“Person with autism” vs. “autistic person.” Many of us prefer identity-first because autism isn’t separate from who we are.
Presuming Competence
The radical idea that disabled people know what we need—and that our communication (even when unconventional) is valid.
Regression
Often describes sudden skill loss—sometimes after trauma, sometimes from neurological causes. But “regression” often frames change as failure or loss, rather than response or survival. Skill loss needs care, not labels that erase agency.
Risk Factor
A label for traits or conditions assumed to increase the chance of something bad happening. In autism studies, it's often used to imply that autistic people themselves are the risk.
Sanism
Discrimination based on real or assumed psychiatric labels. It shows up when autistic people—especially those with anxiety, PTSD, or other co-occurring diagnoses—are dismissed as unstable or unreliable. Psychiatric stigma compounds ableism and makes our truths easier to ignore.
Scientific Gaze
The way science chooses what’s worth seeing. When it’s shaped by deficit thinking, it treats autistic people as broken puzzles—not as narrators of our own lives.
Self-Advocacy
Speaking or acting on one’s own behalf as a disabled person. Crucial—but often used to measure who is “compliant” enough to be heard. True self-advocacy includes the right to dissent, disrupt and be taken seriously.
Sensory Processing Disorder
Sometimes diagnosed alongside autism, sometimes seen as part of it. Describes difficulty regulating sensory input. But the “disorder” label ignores how much of the problem is the environment, not the person.
Social Model
See Medical Model vs. Social Model.
Special Interests
Deep, focused passions common among autistic people. Too often pathologized as obsessive. But for many of us, they’re a source of joy, connection and self-trust.
Stimming
Self-stimulatory behavior—like rocking, humming, or flapping—that helps with regulation. Normal and often essential.
Support Needs
A vague but powerful phrase used to determine services and shape perception. High support doesn’t mean low value. Low support doesn’t mean no struggle.
Tantrum
See Meltdown vs. Tantrum.
Therapeutic Targets
In autism research, therapeutic targeting can mean reducing distressing traits. But too often, it focuses on eliminating core differences instead of supporting well-being. The goal should be easing suffering, not erasing identity.
Tokenism
Including autistic people symbolically — without giving them input, power, or decision-making. True inclusion requires more than presence. It requires influence.
Transition Planning
Usually means preparing an autistic student for adulthood. Too often focused on jobs and independence, not agency or joy.
Vocational Readiness
The idea that autistic people must be trained for employment. But readiness often means “ready to fit in,” not “ready to thrive.”