News Report | July 21, 2019
Researchers Recommend Discarding The Term ‘High-Functioning Autism’
Researchers have recommended discarding the term "high-functioning autism" due to the misleading and potentially harmful expectations it creates around the abilities of children on the autism spectrum. The term "high-functioning autism" was originally created in the 1980s to describe people who have autism but who did not have an intellectual disability based on an intelligence quotient (IQ) test for human intelligence, instead of a functional assessment. Since this time, the term has come to imply that people can manage day-to-day activities without challenges, describing those with autism who have strong language skills, and do not have . . .