Of Low Functioning Human Understanding

In the context of my service with autistic adults, I often hear the question from the public- and I’ve heard it so, so many times, is- so, you just work with “high functioning people with autism”? And I usually answer with - I don’t cherry pick who the Universe sends me to help, I work with everyone who needs me.

Aside from the strange, awkward verbiage of the general “autism culture”, the lie of the term “high functioning / low functioning autistic persons”, has been pervasive, allowed to stain the page of every conversation on neurodiversity since it was first uttered.

Where did the term “high functioning, low functioning” in autism originate?

In Europe, nearly eighty years ago, Dr. Hans Asperger was faced with a terrible dilemma. The pioneering researcher on autism was being watched intently by the Nazis, enduring visits from the Gestapo, and he was well aware of the threat of the eradication of his young autistic patients.

In the beginning, the Nazis quietly, methodically killed all visibly disabled persons they could find, and then once in power, were publicly merciless. The day was coming, and they were going to kill all of Asperger’s “little professors”.

So, condemn him or not- he made a wretched choice, telling the Nazis his “high functioning” patients would make…