This GLOSSARY contains BRIEF definitions of some terms that may be commonly used in advocacy, activist, anti-ableist, and autistic spaces. Please seek out information to learn more about each unfamiliar term. This glossary will continue to be updated. Those who are familiar with activist/advocacy/anti-ableist terminology already

Ableism: discrimination in favor of able-bodied people (including "normal" neurotype).

Allistic: (noun or adjective) someone who is not autistic.

Ally: a person who uses their privilege to advocate on behalf of someone else or a group of people who don't hold that same privilege.

Assent: expression of approval or agreement; term used when a person cannot legally consent, but they are still able to give/withdraw assent.

Consent: permission/agreement to do something or have something done to a person.

Double empathy: the theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathize with each other.

Gaslighting: a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory, sanity, or perceptions.

Grooming: befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, and sometimes the family, to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of abuse/exploitation.

Internalized ableism: when a disabled people internalizes the ideas and prejudices of society that see disability as something bad, wrong, less-than, etc.

Intersectionality: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Lateral ableism: when a disabled person is ableist toward another disabled person.

Masking: the practice of actively suppressing autistic traits and consciously mimicking allistic traits in order to avoid harm and accommodate allistic people. Masking involves stim-suppression, faking eye contact, conscious attempts to read the body language and facial expressions of others, extreme prosody control, and multiple other factors.

Neurodivergent: having a brain that functions in ways that diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.” Abbreviated ND. Example: "I am a neurodivergent person."

Neurodiverse: a neurodiverse group is a group in which multiple neurocognitive styles are represented. Not used to describe one person.

Neurodiversity: the diversity of human minds; the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.

Neurotypical: having a style of neurocognitive functioning that falls within the dominant societal standards of “normal.” Abbreviated NT. Example: "I am a neurotypical person."

Oralism: discrimination against nonspeaking individuals and treatment of vocal speech as inherently superior. Originated in treatment for Deaf and mute individuals with the emphasis on vocal language as superior to all other forms of language.

Presuming competence: means to assume a person has the capacity to think, learn, and understand—even if you don't see any tangible evidence that such is the case. It's assuming they are not inherently incapable; they just need the right supports and systems to help them succeed.

Sealioning: a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate".

Spoons: from the "Spoon Theory" (see Unit 8 resources); a metaphor for the amount of physical/emotional/mental energy one has at any given time and/or the amount it takes to complete tasks.

Stimming: short for self-stimulatory behavior, this is any action which a person takes to stimulate one or more of their senses. Stimming allows individuals to balance their internal and external states through their sensory experiences.

Tone-policing: a conversational oppression tactic that dismisses the ideas being communicated when they are perceived to be delivered in an angry, frustrated, sad, fearful, or otherwise emotionally charged manner (particularly when done to historically-marginalized people).