reclaiming low functioning

2022 04 04

this document will contain more than just the title it's just we wanted to write this the most.

content warnings

ableism, autistic abuse, engages with clinical language, physical and verbal abuse, trauma

it's okay if you don't know if these will be upsetting! we believe in you to practice self care before, during, and after reading, if you are uncertain or have low spoons, we think you should wait to read until you know you're ready :)

if possible, we'd like to be notified if there is something we overlooked warning here. it's okay if you can't do this :)

low functioning label reclaimation

a note from the authors (hiii)

we tried our best to use inclusive, safe, thougthful language and to make it clear we think that functioning labels, medicalism, and everything else that treats autistic people like they should meet the standards (and related things) of allistic neurotypes, are bad.

we are always learning (and forgetting!), so we may not have been able to do this like we wanted to. we are happy that we feel comfortable and like we know enough to make this blogpost with our goals! if we didn't achieve these goals, we'd like to learn about that! finding pro-neurodiversity learning resources is super challenging, and so is collecting all our thoughts concretely that we already have!

reader's guide

we use clinical and medical interchangably.

we use allistic and neurotypical for different things:

• allistic - someone whose neurotype isn't autistic
• neurotypical - someone who does not have a neurodiversity

we think it is important to acknowledge that it isn't specifically just neurotypical people who harm us, and because we think calling an allistic person "neurotypical" erases those people's own neurodiversity.

autie means, essentially, "autistic person".

introduction.

functioning labels are eugenics rhetorics used by allistic (non-autistic) people to describe percieved differences in someone's ability to assimilate into neurotypical culture, and how easily they can be exploited. it's important to understand that this is percieved, and not reflective of how "functioning" someone actually is in a neurotypical context.

if someone cannot verbally speak to you, if they have intense stims that seem extra abnormal like screaming, they're gonna get the low functioning label, even if they are completely capable of doing things on their own, provided others accept those aspects about them.

in contrast, people are labelled high functioning if they can talk to people and socialise in neurotypical ways, if they can seemingly do normal tasks. people labelled as high functioning often do struggle a lot! but this is ignored or even punished, because they are supposed to be "slightly autistic". (hint: this is code for "not autistic"!)

both terms are abusive and imply that what is important is autistic people not being autistic. auties are "ranked" by how allistic they seem, and these ranks are used to define how they should be treated. we were put into a special room for tests in schools that had computers to have them do text-to-speech because they had assumed that we could not process text information well. this was horrible, it was impossible to focus on doing the actual school work, we couldn't hear our own thoughts.

(we do appreciate the thought and that the program (and others like it) did exist; we do not like how being put into it was based on assumptions and that feedback from the kids was ignored. we appreciate the thought, hate the execution. there was a much more effective program we got! we had an assistant teacher who we could ask to describe what a question was asking using words that made more sense. this helped us a lot and made school work a lot less torturous!)

as clarification...

functioning labels are not the same thing as the "autism spectrum." the autism spectrum is a clinical label meant as an attempt to group multiple extremely similar neurodiversities together, and is not a measure of "how autistic someone is."

level of functioning labels, in contrast, are meant to measure exactly that: how autistic someone is. it also not based on someone's neurodiversity, and is instead based on how they seem to an outside, neurotypical-based observer.

because autistic medical professionals and "experts" are just the worst, there continues to be an assumption that level of functioning represents "where" someone is on the autism spectrum, almost as if its a dial that can be turned up and down like on a speed-o-meter.

it doesn't. also we don't like the autism spectrum label either (at least when used medically). it's really bad in its own way lol

we know a lot of autistic people who like or are indifferent to the autism spectrum label, though, and we want to emphasise that whatever we say does not reflect anyone but ourselves. autistic people are different and that's okay, and we're always learning more about us, too, so it may not reflect us in the future either. we're happy if we can help others learn about themselves or their feelings, though!

HIGH FUNCTIONING

elysia, along with many many other autistic people, are plastered with high functioning as soon as we demonstrate being able to talk and move on our own. high functioning people are constantly pressured to meet a neurotypical framework; being autistic is erased from them and ignored, just because they seem easy to assimilate.

being labelled and especially complimented as high functioning implies that in order to be accepted and included, you can't be visibly autistic. for us, this was also enforced via physical and verbal harassment. it can be legitimately scary to share that you are autistic! so, people bombarded with high functioning rhetoric learn to hide being autistic, out of fear of abuse or being treated wrongly.

this is called masking, and is essentially hiding your feelings and who you are for other people. a lot of people don't do this consciously, it's just been so heavily ingrained into their mind they don't notice this (for us, it was also trauma related and difficult to acknowledge and accept because of that). masking is a survival mechanism, and is incredibly painful. it involves forcing yourself to bottle up and pretend to be someone you aren't (which is extremely energy intensive), and it makes it difficult to recognise or listen to your feelings, even if you want to!

it is so painful and high energy. when we were younger, our mum loudly complained into the ether that we were so well tempered in public and awful when in private. her and da were convinced this was because we knew we could get away with it at home. masking is completely invisible to allistic people by design, and is also completely unsustainable. of course this is partially because of the high mental energy, but also because of how destructive it is for your mental health. it's inevitable we're gonna shut down at home if we're always masking!

it also makes emotional releases much bigger. when you have built up, uncared for emotions, they can manifest violently all at once. it's kinda like internal psychological torture. spirals! because meltdowns are seen as autistic, and therefore bad, they are punished quite heavily when caretakers take notice, usually in the form of physical abuse (sitting on, kicking at, etc.).

it makes you feel like you're worthless and that everything you do is wrong. you're either trapped with torment or attacked. it's one of the several reasons why autistic people need to spend their energy on trying to just survive each day. masking is a survival mechanism.

masking made us feel empty and destroyed our mental health for years before we realised that we learned it, and could also unlearn it. we view functioning labels and masking as a way to enforce autistic abuse and exploitation. masking is, essentially, living for someone else (neurotypicals), out of fear that they will harm you if you begin living for yourself instead of them. it is soooo abusive and harmful!!

being labelled as high functioning means you aren't allowed to be autistic, and that your needs and feelings are ignored or forcfully ignored! and you are taught that that is healthy.

LOW FUNCTIONING

low functioning is used to deny someone's humanity. people given the label are often also described as "severly autistic," or a collection of slurs.

people recieve the label when they don't seem to be able to "fit-in," as in, they are viewed as notably lesser than neurotypicals. low functioning people are treated like they cannot do anything, and are stigmatised as being much more disabled than high functioning people. they are even sometimes viewed as particularly dangerous.

they are equally ignored, and treated like a stain, a waste. sometimes they are given support to get them to assimilate into neurotypical culture, anthing but being autistic! this support is wrong and does not care about their actual needs, just what those "experts" think will get them to assimilate.

when we hear people sound shocked when we or someone else tells them we are autistic, all we can imagine is that they think being autistic means being visible and easy to spot. these people think autistic people are folks who scream at everything, phsyically attack others, can't move on their own, can't speak. oh, and of course, the implicit (but rarely ever stated) assumption that they are less "competent" than neurotypicals.

while we're here, the concepts of intelligence are universally designed as a way to create hierarchy and an excuse to call others lesser. it is as made up as morality, and used to justify why some people are "good" or "bad" in accessible, binary ways. it is something designed and constructed, and not reflected in real human psychology at all. do not pretend intelligence is real, and do not use its rhetoric, it's really fucking ableist and racist, among other things.

something we find very interesting about the assumptions those people internally made about who an autistic people are, is that that they are all things that masking seeks to hide. they are all things autistic people are encouraged to hide due to allistic oppression! largely, then, who they view as autistic is based on how well that person is able to hide those traits at that current moment. some people are better at hiding than others.

we also find it fascinating that those assumptions almost exactly reflect who we are! we love screaming and hurting the bad people, and we're partially non-speaking! we also have significant difficulty doing executive function, and sometimes it feel like we're a passenger, and not an opeprator, of our body (all of us). it's just sometimes those aren't visible, and occasionally that is because of fear of more abuse.

reclaimation 🌌

we have recently began to feel quite happy using low functioning. proudly labelling ourselves as low functioning directly challenges the ableist rhetoric and collective thoughts about autistic and disabled people. we want to celeberate who we are and hold onto our own identity, we want to have our needs acknowledged and supported.

it feels so nice to be able to embrace that we are autistic, and acknowledge that we are abused by allistic people for not being neurotypical. and that it's not our fault! we feels good taking care of ourselves ❤️

we can focus on our real barriers, we can focus on targeting and challenging the oppression that hurt us so much. we can advocate for and create inclusive spaces! we want to listen to and act on our feelings, share them and be truly ourselves! we think we are wonderful and we love ourselves!

a lot of the "disabling characteristics of autism" are really just things that make living in neurotypical culture rough, and we think it'd be valuable if allistic people reflected back on theirselves instead of focusing on us pretending to not be auties. using low functioning label with pride helps imply that it is okay and good to be autistic, that we're happy with who we are and won't change that

embracing ourselves as "low functioning" is a rejection of the idea that we must achieve neurotypical passing. it rejects the medicalists that spout bullshit! it gives us agency over who we are, we're not interested in conforming to a unrealistic and abusive standard. we live for ourselves, not systemic abusers.

low functioning is also validating. we associate it with stimming and non-speaking and wanting to be taken care of by someone else (reminder: our feelings do not reflect all other auties!). we find the neurotypical (esp. the capitalist NT) world bad and dangerous and exploitatitive, and we'd like someone who understands it (and us!) and who has more resiliance to it, to help us navigate it safely. we love stimming and being non-speaking lets us take care of ourselves and stay safe!

we especially like the idea of reclaiming it because it feels cool.

we aren't sure if we do feel comfortable using the low functioning label. it feels good to reclaim it, but, we generally don't like identity labels, because they feel artificially limitting to who we can be. we don't really want to risk engaging with the horrible things it suggests in other contexts, and being dragged into feeling less valuable than we are. we also don't need a functioning label to feel valuable or proud of who we are, in fact, we're very comfortable using "autistic" and "autie" exclusively to embrace ourselves! we love us!

if we do use it, we absolutely would not use it to describe our identity broadly, and would use it in more specific scenarios, which is how we use other reclaimed ableist langauge. it can be validating and fun to use sometimes, and would be harmful to internalise as being a fundamental aspect about us !

we can use it if we want, and we can also not use it if we don't want to :) it doesn't need to be a constant.

captions

in video making, captions and subtitles are text metadata that is attached to a video that shares what is happening auditory. they are a basic accessibility feature of video. closed captions describe all important audio information, subtitles only do things that are said verbally.

we write captions, and use them when watching videos as well. we see a lot of examples of them, and also have done research in how to make them well!

parity

one thing that we think is very important is information parity. captions should represent what is going on in audio exactly the same as the information the audio has in it. try and write things in a way a screenreader can accurately interpret!

we have seen captions that convert spoken imperial units to written metric units, we've seen people put notes and corrections into their captions, and various other things. keeping in mind that parity is important also involves using tone indicators when it is appropriate, it means writing what kind of sound effect is in a way that communicates the same meaning as the audio version!

if it is important to write about non audio information in the captions, like the author of them, make it clear it isn't audio with how the information is presented, and put it inside structure elements like square brackets to indicate that it is entirely textual.

getting parity down is one of our favourite parts of writing captions. we like thinking of ways to accurately communicate concepts and feelings in text forms!

styling

how information is visually presented is very important! captions are typically divided into lines, which represent a single line of text, before a line break character(s) (you don't need to know what this is, just that it moves the next text down a line)

information breaks

getting lines, and the captions right, is crucial to good captions. lines should be broken so that the reader's eyes don't need to pan very far to get the information. this makes it accessible to parse, and is very important!

stick to 2-line captions at all possible oppurtinites. we find larger captions overwhelming and difficult to read.

if information is placed in certain ways, it can make reading it more difficult, and/or give it different meaning from the audio equivalent.

we want to try our best to fit a single idea into a single line, or a caption if it is longer. this doesn't neccesarily mean a sentence! it is okay to spread a sentence over multiple lines if it is long. trying to decern what information is the most related to one idea is one of the most interesting parts of making captions!

a common oversight we spot is placing related words in different lines/caption because they wouldn't fit on the same one. this causes people to read the caption differently from the spoken version! this is okay when there is also a noticable break in the verbal delivery between those parts.

some examples of this are placing list predessecors like "such as:" and "like..." at the very end of the caption, and then beginning their list on the next caption (sometimes this is okay?). another example is placing adjectives and their associated noun on different lines/captions, or structural words like "the" being on the caption/line proceeding what they are referring to.

try and end sentences only at the very end of a line, unless the sentence is very short. putting punctuations like full stops and commas at the end of a line in general is good practice, although not always neccesary.

it is okay to place words like "and" at the end of a line or caption.

quotes

when a video shows a text blob for a quotation on screen and speaks it outloud, we generally prefer to also caption the quote, because it is audio information. if the spoken part of the quote is not highlighted in the on screen excerpt, it is good to caption it because the read information is different from the onscreen info.

if onscreen quotes are kept to exactly what is spoken aloud, then it's more okay to not caption them. if anything, just make sure that it is consistent and that all of these are either captioned, or not captioned.

mutliple audio sources

when there is multiple audio sources simultaneously, like a background musik and voiceover, its important to try and find what information is important. in this case, it is usually the voiceover, but sometimes sound effects and musik are important for setting mood or communicating a certain idea, like in a joke.

if the information needs to be displayed simultaneously, avoid placing them on the same caption where possible, and never increase a caption's line number to accomodate the extra information. if possible, place it in another caption that displays at the same time, in a less central location and with a different colour if possible.

using multiple captions and different colours can also be good at denoting speakers. if you can place the location of caption when there are multiple speakers, try to place it in a way that indicates that it is them speaking. if they are on screen, you can put the caption on their body, or use their name!

a rule with multiple speakers, especially when in conversation, is to make it clear when speaker changes. avoid placing multiple speakers on the same caption and especially line, and always start the new speaker with a hyphen or em dash.

non verbal audio information

information not spoken verbally is often given much less attention regardless of its importance to the video, or information spoken by people who aren't the author.

if this information is even slightly important to any part of the media, it should be captioned where possible.

describing music can be done with genre and style, but we think it is better to focus on how it sounds rahter and what information it is trying to communicate, rather than what its genre or style is in a vaccuum. this also goes for sound effects.

similarly, tone indicators are useful to describe intent and how something sounds for vocal things.

place nonverbal audio information in square brackets.

we don't remember everything have a good day