Abstract

Our study aimed to explore the use of language in regard to autism, particularly functioning labels and there might be different perspectives and the factors that might influence preferences. Consequently, we investigated the impact of community connectedness on the acceptability of language use including functioning labels.
We received responses from 516 autistic people who completed our survey. In the survey, we asked about their demographic characteristics and how they would prefer to be referred to as an autistic person. We also inquired about their level of comfort with different terms, such as person with autism, Aspergers, disorder, conditions, living with autism, and autistic. Additionally, we asked about the Autistic Community Connectedness of the respondents, acknowledging the implicit nature of language and identity (Stets & Serpe, 2016). Our primary focus was on whether or not to use functioning labels and the supporting rationale.
According to our respondents, 97% identified that the term 'autist