“It’s like calling short people vertically challenged”: Language and terminology preferences among developmentally neurodivergent adults

Neurodivergent people (e.g. dyslexic people) do not always agree with the terms commonly used by others (e.g. professionals) to describe their neurodivergence. Our mixed methods study aimed to investigate terminology preferences for different categories of developmental neurodivergence (e.g. autism, dyspraxia) among people from those communities. Participants (n = 902) completed an online survey, ranking the likeability and offensiveness of a range of person-first and identify-first terms for their diagnoses. We invited them to tell us reasons for their preferences via open text response, which we analysed using thematic analysis. Paired samples on identity vs. person first preferences showed identity first language was significantly more likeable, and significantly less offensive for most categories, but not all (stuttering and Tourette syndrome). For the thematic analysis, we developed two key themes, 1) ‘How they talk about us’, which focussed on the inadequacy of existing terminology, and the stigma associated with particular labels, and 2) ‘How we talk about us’, which focussed on viscerality of certain terms, agency to express personal preferences, debates around identity vs. person first terms, and identification with the concept of ‘disability’. Our findings have implications for how neurodivergent people are described, especially by those in professional services.