Terminology - content or domain specific

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

ADHD articles
Spell out the full term - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - only in the first instance in the body copy.

Use only the initialism - ADHD - in:

• • the main title

  • key points

  • subheadings and subsubheadings

  • all instances in the body copy, other than the first.

Other articles
Also use only the initialism when referring to this condition in other articles on the site.

For guidance on combining ADHD, disability and autism in descriptions of children and teenagers in articles that are relevant to all children with additional needs, see Disability terminology below.

Autism

• Use identity-first language rather than person-first language. This means you should talk about ‘autistic children’ and ‘autistic teenagers’, rather than ‘children with autism’. 

• Talk about ‘autism’ and use the term ‘autism spectrum disorder’ only when referring to a diagnosis. 

• Refer to therapies and supports for autistic children, rather than treatments.

• For more information, see Autism language on raisingchildren.net.au

For guidance on describing behaviour in autism content, see Behaviour - autism below.

For guidance on combining autism, ADHD and disability in descriptions of children and teenagers in articles that are relevant to all children with additional needs, see Disability terminology below.

Behaviour

Children’s behaviour is influenced by developmental stage, skills, temperament, family values, environment, health, neurodiversity and other factors. The language we use to talk about children’s behaviour should reflect this child-focused understanding and avoid parent-focused, value-laden terms.

Positive behaviour

This is our preferred language:

• positive behaviour

• encouraging positive behaviour in your child/children

• encouraging your child/children to behave in positive ways.

These are acceptable alternatives (for example, when the phrases above have been overused in a paragraph or section):

• behaviour that’s important in your family

• guiding your child’s behaviour

• guiding your child towards positive behaviour.

The following terms are acceptable in specific contexts:

• appropriate behaviour

• cooperative behaviour

• behaving in appropriate ways

• behaving well

• behave appropriately.

Don’t use terms like ‘good behaviour’, ‘behaviour you want to see’ and ‘behaviour you like’.

Behaviour that isn’t positive

This is our preferred language:

• challenging behaviour

• handling challenging behaviour

• behaviour concerns.

‘Responding to challenging behaviour’ is an acceptable alternative to ‘handling challenging behaviour’. Also note that you might sometimes be able to recast sentences to avoid adjectives like ‘challenging’ altogether.

The following terms are acceptable in specific contexts (for example, content about bullying, sexual behaviour, racism and sexism):

• inappropriate behaviour

• unacceptable behaviour

• problematic and harmful behaviour.

Don’t use terms like ‘bad behaviour’, ‘naughty behaviour’ ‘difficult behaviour’, ‘disruptive behaviour’, ‘behaviour you don’t like’, ‘misbehaviour’ and ‘problem behaviour’. Also, don’t use ‘deal with’, ‘manage’ or ‘criticise’ in reference to challenging behaviour.

Behaviour - strategies, therapies and support plans

This is our preferred language for referring to strategies:

• positive behaviour strategies

• tips for positive behaviour

• behaviour tips.

‘Discipline’ is acceptable in specific contexts.

Don’t use terms like ‘behaviour management’ or ‘managing your child’s behaviour’.

This is our preferred language for referring to therapies and plans:

• • behavioural therapy (not behaviour therapy)

  • cognitive behaviour therapy (not cognitive behavioural therapy)

  • behaviour support plans (not behaviour plans or 'behaviour management plans).

General
Refer to ‘behaviour’ NOT ‘behaviours’. The latter sounds jargonistic and specialist.

Behaviour - autism content

Refer to:

• challenging behaviour rather than difficult or inappropriate (etc) behaviour

• new or alternative behaviour rather than appropriate or better (etc) behaviour.

Look for opportunities to recast sentences to avoid adjectives altogether. You can often do this if a sentence also includes an example. 

For example, this:

It can also reduce difficult behaviour like inattention, aggression and screaming.

... can become this:

It can also reduce behaviour like inattention, aggression and screaming.

Sometimes you might also be able to refer to children 'changing' their behaviour and so on.

Child care

Generally, use the term 'child care' rather than 'early childhood education and care', 'early childhood learning and care' and so on. Also use the term 'child care centre' (or 'child care services' if you're talking about different kinds of child care, like long day care, family day care and so on) rather than 'early learning centre', 'early childhood service' and so on. This is because 'child care' has a much higher SEO yield than 'early childhood education and care', even though the latter is the sector's preferred term.

But when we're referring to the sector itself, 'early childhood education and care' might be appropriate – for example, in the article Early childhood education and care services: qualifications and ratios and other articles in the Child care policy batch.

Child care - educators and carers

When referring to child care carers and educators, refer to ‘early childhood educators and carers’ in the H2 and first instance in the section, and thereafter as ‘educators’.

Disability

The guidelines below are for articles that are relevant to children and teenagers with additional needs, including disability, autism, ADHD or chronic conditions. They are best used in a flexible way that responds to article context and SEO data. For advice, please consult the Managing Editor or Web Editor.

Titles

• Use the names of conditions (but don't refer to 'other additional needs') - for example, 'disability, autism or ADHD' or 'disability or ADHD' or 'disability or a chronic condition' and so on.

• Where possible or appropriate, use 'your child' instead of 'children', 'teenagers' or 'children and teenagers', but specify age range when relevant or needed.

For example:

• How to choose services for your child with disability, autism or ADHD

• How to choose a primary school for your child with disability or ADHD

• How to choose a secondary school for your child with disability or ADHD

• Making decisions for your child with disability, autism or ADHD: parent guide

• How to help your child with disability or ADHD learn skills

• Anxiety in your child with disability or a chronic condition: 5-11 years

• Anxiety in your child with disability or a chronic condition: 12-18 years

Key points

In first position, add one of the following key points as relevant to identify the article's  full audience:

• If your child has disability or ADHD, is autistic, or has other additional needs, this article is for you.

• If your child has disability, ADHD or other additional needs, this article is for you.

• If your child has disability or a chronic condition, this article is for you.

Subheadings

First subhead only, use 'your child' [or 'children' or 'children and teenagers' as relevant] + conditions + 'other needs' or 'other additional needs' if space allows. For example:

• Why it’s good to talk about your child’s disability, autism, ADHD or other additional needs

• Positive relationship changes when raising a child with disability, autism, ADHD or other needs

• How natural disasters affect children with disability, autism, ADHD or other needs

Subsequent subheads generally do not need to include the conditions.

Copy

When relevant or appropriate, in the first instance in the first section, the following clause can be helpful:

• If your child has disability or ADHD, is autistic, or has other additional needs  [add additional needs glossary #121279] ...

Thereafter, the full phrase with its list of conditions will not generally not be needed and can be removed. But there will be cases where we need to retain its use for the purposes of distinguishing children with disability, autism or ADHD from children without these conditions - for example, where we're describing differences in the way children respond, behave, show emotions, experience mental health and so on.

Health practitioners

There are many terms used to refer to health practitioners, for example: 

Medical practitioners, GP, general doctor, counsellor, health professional, general practitioner, mental health professional 

A psychologist, social worker, paediatrician or other child mental health professional can often help a child deal with the emotional damage done by bullying. (Spock)

Note that our standard way of referring to child health nurses is child and family health nurse (rather than child health nurse, maternal health nurse and so on). And if we're referring to a local or family doctor, we generally refer to a GP (rather than to a 'doctor').

LGBTIQ+

On raisingchildren.net.au, we try very hard to use language that includes, represents and respects LGBTIQ+ people and their families:

• LGBTIQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse, intersex, and queer or questioning. The ‘+’ represents other words that people use to describe their diverse experiences of bodies, genders or sexualities. 

• We use LGBTIQ+ when we make general statements about inclusivity. For example:
  When your baby is in the NICU, you can expect that staff will do their best to treat you with respect and make you feel included. This includes respect for your family’s parenting arrangements, whether you’re raising children as a blended family, co-parenting family,  single-parent family, LGBTIQ+ family and so on.

• We use LGBTQ+ instead of LGBTIQ+ if the content isn’t directly relevant to people with an intersex variation.

• We might use LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer) if we’re referring only to diverse experiences of sexuality.

• We might use 'trans or gender diverse' if we’re referring only to experiences of gender.

• For more information, see LGBTIQ+ language on raisingchildren.net.au

Mental health

Use:

• 'mental health problem/s' when writing generally about this topic

• 'mental health condition/s' when referring to diagnosable mental health problems.

Avoid:

• 'mental health disorder/s'

• 'mental illness'.

'Disorder' may be used when it's part of the name of a diagnosable condition - for example, 'anxiety disorder', 'conduct disorder', 'attention deficit hyperactivity disorder' and so on.

NDIS

For NDIS terminology and definitions as used on raisingchildren.net.au, see NDIS terminology: a guide.

Pregnancy

Refer to:

• ‘complex pregnancy’ (rather than 'high-risk pregnancy')

• ‘uncomplicated pregnancy’ (rather than 'low-risk pregnancy')

Use ‘maternity unit’ to refer to ‘maternity ward’ and ’postnatal ward’.

When referring to several pregnancy health professionals together, present them in the following order- ‘midwife or doctor’.

Use ‘caesarean birth’ when referring to ‘caesarean’ or ‘caesarean section’, except when referring specifically to the procedure/surgery of caesarean section, when you should use ‘caesarean section’.

Where possible, remove ‘women’ from the page title and body text. This is to help make the content more gender neutral. 

Include the following paragraph in the Acknowledgments field for all pregnancy content:

 raisingchildren.net.au talks about ‘pregnant women’, ‘birthing mothers’, ‘non-birthing parents’, ‘partners’ and ‘breastfeeding’. We recognise that parents and families use various words to talk about themselves and their bodies. We respect their chosen terminology.

SUDI

SUDI stands for sudden unexpected death in infancy. It's the sudden, unexpected death of an infant in which the cause is not immediately obvious. SUDI includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and fatal sleep accidents. See out article on SUDI.

The first time you refer to SUDI in body copy, present the term as follows:

sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and fatal sleep accidents

After this, you can present the term as follows:

SUDI including SIDS and fatal sleep accidents

Note that presentation of the term might need to vary in titles and abstracts because of restrictions on character count and so on.

Note also that these terms should be used instead of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in most cases.

Therapies (and supports) vs treatments

We prefer ‘therapies [and supports]’ and avoid ‘treatment/s’ when we’re writing about an identity topic – for example, neurodiversity including autism.

‘Treatment’ is appropriate when we’re writing about conditions that can be treated and from which people can recover. This includes medical and physical or mental health conditions, noting that the Australian Government funds Mental Health Treatment Plans.

Caution should be exercised when writing about therapies, supports and treatments in relation to gender topics – for example, hormones to delay puberty.

The key thing to avoid is sending the message that a person is damaged and needs to be 'fixed'.