WHAT IS "HIGH-FUNCTIONING?"

[trouble]

I know there was a lot of interest/support in the idea of having a tumblr related to "Disability: What It Looks Like!" (I'm still mulling it over a bit - I mean, procrastination won't happen on its own!)

AWV recently emailed to point out What Is High Functioning, which is a tumblr-blog:

A list of different ways people use the word "high-functioning" about people with developmental disabilities; an attempt to figure out what it actually is supposed to mean.

Interested humans--people with disabilities, staff, family members, allies, and people who are more than one of those things--are invited to share different ways they have heard the term "high-functioning" be used.

I enjoy it in that way you sort of enjoy things that prove a point.

I know they are looking for more people to submit things, so I encourage those of you with Tumblrs to do so! And also point your friends on tumblr in their direction. (I am currently on self-imposed Tumblr-hiatus to the point where Don changed my password so I wouldn't log in "by accident", or I would post this there.)

Comments

[ginny_t]

So that's what happened. Don is very evil. *sulks*

[jesse_the_k]

Don is SMRT

Hmmm, will try to think. I want to think of something that is high-level in a negative way: "from the heights of the Pacific to the depths of Everest."

MyGuy takes the crucial cable for my net connection to work with him from 7a to 5p.

[passerine]

I don't have tumblr, but in the semi-professional context where I am working, "high functioning" = a person with a State-defined developmental disability (or, less often, mental illness) who is expected to be able to live outside of residential care, and work outside of a sheltered/supported environment, as an adult.

Try this...

[ysabetwordsmith]

In my observation, "high-functioning" is most often used to mean "can fake what is considered 'normal' well enough to get by in some relevant circumstance."

[silveradept]

Hee. I knew there had to be more than just one out there. Hooray for being proven right, and more hooray for the people who contribute to it.

[kaz]

I think if I answered this question the bitterness level would rise to such dangerous amounts as to cause a black hole of bitterness and destroy the planet.

ETA: But hey, why not. Various definitions I have seen in use re: autism:

- IQ of at least n, where n varies.
- can communicate
- can speak verbally
- disagrees with me
- does not do [X stereotypical autistic behaviour, where X is carefully chosen so as to be something the autistic person one is talking to does not do. Shock value is also a good thing. Smearing feces is popular here.]
- only symptoms are social difficulties and those don't have to be taken seriously
- has no real problems

For bonus points, merge the second or fourth and the last two definitions - any autistic who is capable of typing messages on the internet in order to disagree with you clearly doesn't need any sort of help, doesn't have any problems and is just whining.

This is the kind of terminology where I don't just want it to die I want a time machine so I can go back and make sure that it never existed in the first place.

[allies_person]

I submitted this today, but I might as well right about it here too because I'm feeling rather ranty about it. I recently learned that a prominent local autism professional/researcher refers to autistic people who have completed college as "super high-functioning." This causes me to rage. I don't deny that having one or more degrees confers certain privileges, but to me that is just such a reductive way to look at disability and I find it really erasing and upsetting. Because I don't think that the next time I have a public meltdown (for instance) my B.A. is going to help me much. And while I aced most of my academic classes, I somehow suspect that I wouldn't have graduated with Latin honors had doing the laundry, cooking, and other basic self-care things been in the college curriculum. I also failed spectacularly in the whole "living in a dormitory without drawing negative attention to oneself" thing. I had some really hard and negative experiences in college because of things that happened in the dorms (and because a lot of the students were ableist assholes, frankly). But if you just look at my academic record, I did better than most non-disabled people, so that must mean I'm not really disabled. I *hate* disability policing from non-disabled people (not fond of it from disabled people either, for that matter), and the "high-functioning" hierarchy is a pernicious way of doing that, with the side benefit of attempting to silence autistic people who dare disagree with the medical establishment and nonprofit industry.