Thoughts on Counterintuitive Words

Language evolves. Language is not created: not sensible, oftentimes without logic. There’s a reason why we’re not all speaking Esperanto. But that doesn’t stop me from occasionally wishing certain words had evolved and proliferated a little differently.

If English had been designed rather than hodge-podged, we wouldn’t have , for instance. We wouldn’t have .

We wouldn’t need the word ‘toes’ when ‘foot fingers’ was right there! In Japanese, ashi no yubi does, in fact, directly translate to ‘foot fingers.’ Likewise, you can probably deduce the meaning of ‘hand neck.’

I feel the word ‘prosaic’ should be complimentary rather than derogatory. Prosaic might describe ‘beautiful prose.’ Instead, it basically means ‘ordinary and boring,’ from ‘not poetry,’ as if poetry is the only way to make language beautiful.

Likewise, I shouldn’t have to actively learn the difference between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested.’ The words themselves ‘should’ be different enough that we can all learn the distinction intuitively, just as we learnt the meaning of ‘the’ and ‘went’ and ‘dog.’

‘Taking candy from a baby’ is not easy, actually. Babies cry. Your ears hurt from the noise of it, and also you feel bad. Right?

I’m about to talk about certain words from neurodivergent/queer communities. The danger here is that by urging caution around words, people outside the communities become too nervous to talk about queerness and disability at all.

That’s not the aim here. I’m aiming for the inverse. We need to talk more about these things with confidence.

Non-Verbal Learning Disorder

Non-verbal learning disorder is a topical example of words gone wrong.

Why are we talking about this now? USA Vice President Kamala Harris has selected her Presidential running mate, and he is called Tim Walz. Tim’s son Gus has a ‘non-verbal learning disorder’ (NVLD or NLD), which means NVLD is making headlines in mainstream news for… the first time ever?

Now is an excellent time to coax a wider audience towards understanding this lesser-known learning disorder.

Unfortunately, counterintuitively, ‘non-verbal learning disorder’ does not, in fact, mean Gus is non-verbal. It means nothing of the sort.

Notes on the ‘D’

This is a side note, but regarding the ‘D’ at the end of NVLD, I’ve also heard ‘disability’ rather than ‘disorder.

Neither ‘disorder’ nor ‘disability’ are stigmatising words. Not unless they’re meant that way. A neutral word can (and does) become stigmatizing once it’s wielded in ableist ways, but we can’t let that happen. We end up with no words left. Literally. And speaking imperfectly about disability (and queerness) is better than not speaking of it at all.

A disorder refers to a medical or psychological condition that deviates from typical functioning. Disorders are diagnosed based on specific criteria. While disorders can lead to disabilities, not all disabilities are the result of disorders.

We might also say the ‘D’ at the end of NVLD, ASD, and AD/HD stands for ‘difference.’ I do sometimes switch that out myself, favouring the social model of disability over the medical model. But there are pluses and minuses to doing this.

The benefit to calling something a ‘disorder’: Disorders are more likely to attract accommodations and, hopefully (eventually), funding. The downside: ‘Disorder’ suggests brokenness or someone in need of fixing/curing, regardless of what the person in question wants for themselves.

The downside to ‘Difference’: This word can downplay very real difficulties and almost makes it seem as if ‘being different’ is, at some level, a personal choice.

Back to NVLD. ‘Non-verbal learning disorder’ does not mean that Gus can’t speak. Counterintuitively, people with NVLDs .

The term ‘non-verbal’ itself is widely misapplied: When someone can communicate, just not via speaking, the term we’re after is ‘non-speaking.’ People communicate in many different ways aside from spoken language. For example, we might type, use an assistive device, or sign. All of those ways of communicating are ‘verbal.’ Someone with receptive language skills is also verbal.

‘Non-speaking’ means exactly that and no more. It means they don’t communicate by speaking words. Many people are mistakenly called ‘non-verbal’ when they are simply ‘non-speaking’. They may be highly proficient communicators once given the opportunity to communicate in different ways. An Autistic person who does not speak may communicate in writing with the most beautiful prose.

A diagnosis of non-verbal learning disorder means that Gus’s particular learning disorder is not of the verbal kind. Backwards day, right?

To put it another way, for Gus, non-verbal-related tasks are the tasks that challenge him the most.

Partly because of how non-verbal learning disorder is named, we think we can guess what the word means, but we simply cannot… unless we are curious enough to access information about it.

Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes, was moved to post: “Gus [Walz] is not non-verbal. He has Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, which is different. Please learn the difference.”

So I did. I did a bunch of reading about it.

With NVLD, struggles tend to cluster around visual processing:

• visual memory
• visual recall
• various visual strategies

On Bluesky, someone quipped that the person who came up with ‘non-verbal learning disorder’ must have also named the ‘red-bellied woodpecker.’ The fact is, — something only the most avid of bird enthusiasts would notice. Most of us would notice… the bright redhead instead!

Non-verbal learning disorders are visual memory disorders. NVLDs are also described as ‘social and spatial’ learning disorders. It makes sense that one’s social life is affected if you have difficulty with visual cues and conversational timing. It makes sense that NVLD is also a social disorder, in a world where little social grace is afforded to those who process social cues differently.

Unlike with dyslexia, a child with an NVLD may learn to read easily. (Dyslexia is a visual processing disorder; NVLD typically is a spatial processing and visual memory disorder.)

Prescription glasses do not fix dyslexia, nor do they fix NVLDs. This is a brain thing, not an eyeball thing. However, very specialised eyewear can sometimes help with some aspects of visual and spatial processing. (Likewise, our AD/HD dyslexic kid with 20/20 vision wore special glasses for about five minutes before breaking and then losing them.)

Recognising NVLD

Adults don’t grow out of NVLD. But it’s important we learn to identify learning disabilities in childhood. Summarising the thread linked above, this is how adults might recognise a child with a NVLD:

• unusually sized, heavily sloping, or otherwise unusual handwriting
• difficulty completing worksheets in the expected manner — workings may be scattered all around the page
• tasks commonly given to classes as ‘fun’ fillers are seldom fun for the NVLD kids (e.g. word searches, crosswords — all impossible)
• other very difficult things: reading maps, riding a bike, writing letters and essays, planning tasks, ball sports, reading charts and graphs…
• Neurotypical adults can’t intuit why the NVLD child has prioritised and deprioritised things the way they have, as it doesn’t seem to make sense.
• When shown a shape and then asked to recreate that same shape, NVLD kids are less able to do it. (This task is part of the diagnostic process — a ‘join the dots to make a picture’ type exercise — which will likely be impossible.) Some NLVD folks can do this task when the image is shown again, but others simply cannot, no matter how many times they are shown the original shape.
• This issue with visual memory means the NLVD kid may not remember a personal item exists once it goes into the backpack or locker and ‘disappears’ forever.
• Keeping track of coursework can be a huge difficulty, especially if different teachers are using different (or slightly different) systems: an admixture of paper handouts/school intranet/Google docs/email.
• Lessons in how to put worksheets into a folder simply won’t work.
• Lessons in ‘being more careful not to lose stuff’ won’t work.
• NVLD kids benefit from an executive functioning coach, who teaches strategies to work with the individual’s specific neurodivergent brain.
• Challenges increase once the child gets older and is expected to remember more things without the help of a parent/caregiver.
• It’s likely the NVLD kid had a bit of trouble learning how to ride a bike. Next, learning to drive is a challenge.
• NVLD kids are often accused of deliberate duplicitousness because others cannot believe that homework could be done but not handed in or understand that the student simply doesn’t know what happened to it, so they are trying to fill in the blanks.
• In common with other learning difficulties (e.g., AD/HD and dyslexia), NVLD kids can be very good at other things, which may somewhat compensate for the difficulties of NVLD, e.g., very skilled at art/building/designing. For adults who don’t understand the disorder, being good at some things but not others can be mistaken for ‘laziness’ or ‘learned helplessness’ or ‘stubbornness’ or ‘non-compliance.’
• Unlike other learning disabilities, when NLVD kids are tested, verbal and non-verbal IQ splits into separate components.
• In common with other learning disabilities, NLVD kids have ‘uneven’ performance.
• In common with Autism, NLVD folks can have difficulty understanding verbal and body language (visual) cues.
• In common with Autism, NLVD is highly individual. Some people have issues in one area, but not in another. NLVD is not a single disorder.
• In common with other learning disabilities, NLVD difficulties stand out in school settings, which are very much set up to accommodate neurotypical students.

Is NVLD… a subcategory of autism?

Unlike Autism, NVLD does not attract funding, let alone widespread understanding and accommodations. That’s mostly because the current edition of the DSM does not recognize NVLD. We might predict, therefore, that some children with formal Autism diagnoses would be better described as having NVLD.

We might also predict that many more NVLD children go undiagnosed and unsupported at all, all the way through school and into adulthood. The same applies to many Autistic children, even now.

Anyone who confidently tells you at this point in human history exactly what Autism is and is not should be regarded as highly suss. All the experts I consider the most authoritative in the world at this time will readily admit we know less about Autism than we thought we did ten to twenty years ago. Will NVLD one day come under the umbrella of Autism? Who can say?

The DSM is a political document.

Neurodivergent does not mean ‘autism’

What we can say right now: Gus Walz has a publicly disclosed diagnosis of NVLD, not Autism. Some news outlets describe Gus as ‘neurodivergent.’

‘Neurodivergent’ is not a euphemistic synonym for Autism. Neurodivergence encompasses a wide variety of brain differences, including dementia, traumatic brain injury, stroke… literally anything that makes a brain different. The Autistic community would prefer if no one spoke euphemistically about Autism. Autism is not taboo.

However, many online are saying Gus is Autistic. While Autistic is not an insult and not taboo, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to label people (kids, no less!) with words they have not claimed/made public. While it’s not an insult to be an Australian, New Zealanders don’t like it when they are called Australian, either. These are basic manners, apart from the minimisation and invisibilisation issues.

I accept neurodivergent people saying ‘neurodivergent’ to describe themselves, with the aim of avoiding specificity. Queer people use queer in the same way. Sometimes, you want to find your people, but you don’t want to get into the fine details of your own diagnoses. Sometimes, you don’t have access to diagnoses, and you’re not entirely sure which of the DSM labels apply. Also? Maybe you don’t bow down to the DSM labelling system anyhow.

This is why some of us, sometimes, will call ourselves ‘neurodivergent’ instead of being more specific. Likewise, I’d rather call myself ‘queer’ than get into the nuts and bolts of how my attraction works. Aside from ‘asexual’ I have access to more specific words to describe myself, but those are private. Allo-cishets don’t announce the specifics of their sexuality broadly and publicly. No one else should have to, either. The choice to get granular is especially exhausting when your labels require a PowerPoint presentation to explain what the words even mean, as I’m sure Gus Walz will feel pressure to do in educating the public about his very specific learning disorder.

Executive function versus skill

Importantly, ‘executive functioning’ and ‘skill’ describe two quite different things. If you ever hear the phrase ‘executive functioning skills, ’ that’s a misuse of terminology.

A skill describes something learned to the point where it becomes automatic.

In contrast, executive functioning describes things such as your working memory, self-control, and ability to focus. No amount of ‘learning’ how to improve your executive functioning will improve it: your brain is your brain, and your executive function is your executive function. Brains do change over time a little, but not because we ‘try harder.’

We must all learn how our brains work and how to make the most of them. Strategies to work with the executive functioning we’ve got are key.

It’s important to understand what a ‘skill’ is and is not because no amount of exposure to crosswords will help a kid with NLVD get great at crosswords if they struggle with crosswords. No amount of ‘trying harder’ will help a kid with AD/HD to focus. Spelling flashcards won’t ‘fix’ dyslexia… and so on.

I acknowledge the constructed and limiting nature of any labels that we employ in an attempt to describe humans and our complex, fascinating brains. Labels will never be discrete, fully accurate, or fully inclusive until such time as we fully understand the human brain. (And I don’t see how we will ever understand the human brain since the human brain is the best we have!)

Asexual as orientation

Let’s move now to the LGBTQIA+ world.

The A of the initialism refers to at least three things: asexual, aromantic, and agender (also, and ). We are inclined to forget that a single letter in an initialism can refer to more than one identity.

I do wish ‘asexual’ had a better name, but I can’t come up with an alternative, even if I did think the word could be changed at this point.

Here’s why: When people first encounter the word ‘asexual’ as queer terminology (rather than, say, in biology class), they tend to think the a- prefix means ‘without’ and that ‘sexual’ refers to sexual behaviour rather than to orientation.

Without some kind of educative process, it is not intuitive that ‘asexuality’ fits into the same word family as homosexuality, heterosexuality, pansexuality, and bi+ — words which all refer to sexual orientation, not to sexual behaviour.

But since the prefix ‘a-’ does indeed mean ‘without,’ the word itself suggests ‘nothing to see here’, ‘nothing to learn.’ To be ‘without sexuality’ is to be boring and to offer nothing to anyone outside the community itself. So persuading the wider population, even the wider queer community, to accept asexuality as a ‘something’ rather than a ‘nothing’ is a mission in itself.

Recently, (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) updated its official definition of asexuality to avoid the word ‘lack.’ This reflects a conceptual change happening more widely. Previously, asexuality was defined by AVEN as “the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.”

Note that AVEN is USA-centric and is disproportionately referenced by researchers. AVEN is not the be-all-and-end-all of definitions, but if AVEN has changed its definition, we can be sure something is shifting more broadly.

The definition of asexuality is still in evolution.

Personally, I predict (hope!) the community will eventually arrive at a definition more in line with how Susan Stryker defines ‘transgender.’ Read the following and imagine how the ace community might describe asexuality as orientation, as something rather than as a nothing:

Because “transgender” is a word that has come into widespread use only in the past couple of decades, its meanings are still under construction. I use it in this book to refer to people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth, people who cross over (trans-) the boundaries constructed by their culture to define and contain that gender. Some people move away from their birth-assigned gender because they feel strongly that they properly belong to another gender in which it would be better for them to life; others want to strike out toward some new location, some space not yet clearly defined or concretely occupied; still others simply feel the need to get away from the conventional expectations bound up with the gender that was initially put upon them. In any case, it is the movement across a socially imposed boundary away from an unchosen starting place — rather than any particular destination or mode of transition — that best characterizes the concept of “transgender” that I want to develop here.

— Susan Stryker

Of course, transgender describes gender identity, whereas asexuality describes sexual orientation. These are two separate aspects of identity. However, I’m urging you to switch those words out. Now we’re halfway towards the most excellent definition of all asexuality can be.

Taking cues from Stryker’s description of ‘transgender’, a shared definition of ‘asexuality’ might likewise emphasise a moving away from:

• away from compulsory sexuality
• away from various normative assumptions (namely: heteronormativity, , , )

The concept of asexuality would then capture more ways of Being Asexual. Ace discourse would no longer tie itself in knots over whether ‘true’ asexuality comes via non-normative experiences of attraction — or libido — or desire, or whatever, or whether an asexual person perceives their asexuality to be a ‘built-in feature’ or else seems to come via life experience. None of that would matter because asexuality would be understood as queer, in the queerest sense of the term, as a pushback against the sexuality that the dominant culture initially puts on us all as we enter adolescence.

Heteronormativity

I didn’t hyperlink the word ‘heteronormativity’ above because I think most people reading this far know what it means. However, even this word is worth a second look.

Check that when you say ‘heteronormativity’ you don’t mean ‘sexual normativity’:

We often use heteronormativity as a synonym for sexual normativity. But they aren’t synonyms. Heteronormativity is merely one very important element of sexual normativity: namely, the societal pressure that situates heterosexuality as supposedly “natural” and “ideal.”

However, focusing only on the “hetero” part of sexual normativity misses various other ways that sexual normativity operates in our society.

—

Those ‘other ways’ (that sexual normativity operates) only come into focus once asexuality is considered. If you don’t understand asexuality, you don’t understand sexuality. If you don’t understand fully sexuality, you cannot fully understand humanity.

Hypersexuality

‘Hyper-’ is another of those prefixes that clue English speakers into the general meaning of a word, tricking us into thinking we can accurately deduce a word’s meaning.

‘Hyper-’ is the inverse of ‘Hypo-’, right? Most of us know that. Over, under. More than average, less than average. Right? Well…

We need to be a bit careful not to accidentally medicalise. I’d like to focus on the word ‘hypersexual.’

When we first hear the word ‘hypersexual,’ we might think the word simply means ‘has a lot of sex’, or ‘engages in very frequent sexual behaviours of any kind’.

It doesn’t mean that.

Obligatory disclaimer:

Invoking my undergraduate linguistics training, words do end up meaning however those words are widely used and understood. The word ‘hypersexual’ is so frequently misused now that I must acknowledge that ‘hypersexual’ has a new meaning now. If you remember early 2000s Google, so many people misspelled the word ‘bureau’ that Google would suggest the more common, incorrect spelling. If everyone spells something ‘incorrectly’, that’s how it’s spelt now. If Google hadn’t fixed that up, dictionaries may have even added the alternative spelling. The history of any language is chock-a-block with examples like this.

‘Hypersexuality’ is a term from psychology and refers to an intense focus on sexual fantasies or behaviours that can’t be controlled. Hypersexual people find their sexuality upsetting as it interferes with how they would prefer to live their lives and what they would prefer to focus on. Hypersexuality is frequently a trauma response.

‘Hypersexual’ does not mean ‘likes to have a lot of sex.’

I don’t much care whether the spelling of ‘bureau’ changes.

But if we lose the meaning of hypersexuality, that is a very real loss.

The asexual community, I have noticed, is particularly sloppy about using ‘hypersexual’ to mean ‘likes to have a lot of sex.’ I can see why: Asexuals are more likely than other orientations to feel alienated from what I would call the supersexual culture that now describes early 21st-century Western culture.

I like ‘supersexual’ because it errs in the direction of celebrating rather than medicalising joyous sexuality. Others use ‘extrasexual’, which I think may be prone to sounding a little medicalising, a little judgemental, perhaps? But in common with ‘supersexual,’ the neologism of ‘extrasexual’ is an attempt to move us away from misusing the word ‘hypersexual’.

Either way, the culture requires language to describe the state of being very sexual compared to your peers. So asexuals have glommed onto ‘hypersexual,’ which… is already taken.

Since it is possible — common, even — for asexual people to be both asexual and hypersexual (due to sexual trauma and boundary violations), it is especially important that the ace community take a hard look at our language use.

(And aren’t we excellent at that, normally?)

Non-Binary Gender

The stand-out feature of being non-binary: Rejecting the gender binary. So it is utterly annoying to have the word ‘binary’ in the label and to be described as something you are not.

I am non-binary, but I describe myself as agender. However, ‘agender’ suffers from the same issue as ‘asexual,’ focusing on what I am not rather than who I am. Sometimes, there’s no obvious way around this.

Spoon Theory

Some words are counterintuitive, if not outright misleading.

Other times, a concept needs a little tweak before it becomes the right fit for you.

Disability blogger Christine Miserandino came up with the ‘spoon theory’ in the early 2000s. Spoon theory (more of a concept than a theory) is now widely referenced across the disability world — a testament to its usefulness.

I’ve more recently heard Autistic YouTuber argue a case for the metaphor of ‘tickets’ over ‘spoons’ to explain the same concept, reflecting the reality that on any given day, a person can have the spoons to do one thing but not another thing, in which case tickets makes more sense. Especially, perhaps, for the Autistic community. For example, you might have the tickets to research dinosaurs for six hours but not a ticket to go to the supermarket for twenty minutes.

Autistic Masking

It has taken me a long time to articulate why I dislike the word ‘masking.’ And I’m still not confident I can explain it, but I’ll give it a go.

First of all, we do need a word to describe the way Autistic people are forced, threatened, and cajoled into acting like allistic people, at sometimes extreme personal cost, which leads to burnout. We have collectively settled on the word ‘masking’, and that’s just how it is.

But I want to tell you why I have an issue with it regardless before I go ahead and use it.

My problem with ‘mask’: To put on a ‘mask’ is a deliberate and conscious act. It’s impossible to be wearing a literal mask and not know about it. Covid has taught us this, judging by the huge proportion of the population who find masking, even in medical settings, a personal imposition.

But Autistic masking is not necessarily deliberate. In fact, when an adult learns they are Autistic after a lifetime of ‘masking,’ it is very common to ask oneself questions such as, “Who am I really? Who might I be if I weren’t forced to have become someone else by others?”

Also, the concept of masking relies on the idea that there is a ‘true self’ versus a ‘fake self.’ This could do with some interrogation in itself. But I’ll skip that here.

On the topic of ‘fakeness’ — ‘masking’ implies deception. In stories across cultures, the trope of the mask is generally used to allow characters to get away with something. This is as true in the thriller genres as in comedy.

But Autistic people don’t mask to ‘get away with’ something. Quite the opposite. We do it to ‘fall in with’ something: acceptable, allistic society.

Autistic masking is an extreme version of what corporate speak calls ‘reputation management.’ Unless we behave in circumscribed, socially acceptable ways, we are penalised for it. Not every Autistic person can mask, and even if we can, we can’t keep it up forever, and no one can keep it up without immense personal cost. As we head into middle-age, energy levels decrease. We’ve grown in wisdom, having spent decades studying the culture of the dominant neurotype around us. This makes our Autistic neurotype easier to live with, in multifarious ways. But this newfound cultural ease comes with a counterweight: energy-intensive social masking takes so much more out of us as we head into middle age. In this way, Autistic social life never seems to get much easier, all things considered.

It’s important to describe Autism in terms of how it feels to be Autistic rather than how non-Autistic people perceive Autistics to fail. This focus on ‘behaviour’ is the main problem with the medical model of Autism. At first glance, the word ‘masking’ seems to describe the internal experience of being Autistic, just as I might hope. But really, when I take a close look at how ‘masking’ is used by non-Autistic researchers, so often the word does a better job of describing the onlooker’s failure to see Autism right in front of them, with no attempt on the part of the Autistic person to hide or ‘mask’ anything whatsoever.

For this reason, I’m far more at home when Autistic people themselves refer to their own masking than when non-Autistic researchers think they’re observing it. Did that little Autistic kid really ‘mask’ her Autism all those years, or was it more the case that no one understood what Autism often looks like?

For these reasons, for years, I rejected ‘masking’ as a concept, and also the notion that I, personally, ‘mask’. Across contexts, I have been told that I am a disarmingly straightforward person. How could I be both straightforward and also, somehow, in hiding?

Another 100% Autistic irony: I am frequently without expression, yet I am also told (by people who get to know me) that I am unable to hide whatever I’m feeling. It shows on my face.

Here is a photo of ten-year-old me.

Image by the author

Flipping through my childhood photo album, this one stands out. This photo is the only candid snapshot I have. In every other picture, my face is doing one of two things: I am either squinting into bright sunlight (due to my father’s insistence that photographs only come out if you’re front-lit under the sun at its eye-piercing zenith), or else I am forcing a ridiculously toothy grin, which is entirely unnatural but in line with instructions to ‘smile.’

I have no idea why this one was taken, but it was undoubtedly my father who took it one Saturday morning as I watched cartoons on the couch, enjoying a favourite breakfast of jam on toast.

Any 1980s kid will tell you: Saturday morning cartoons were the highlight of our week. The photographer has crept up on me, and I haven’t even noticed. I am utterly absorbed here.

Even now, this is how I look when I am having the time of my life. That photo is of me at my agender/non-binary best. Adolescence wasn’t far away, and that’s another story.

If I had grown into a man, that ‘low affect’ look may have come across as ‘scary.’ On the flipside, I would be absolved of appearing ‘pretty’ and ‘nice’ for the comfort of others. But no, that agender kid grew into a ‘woman.’ So allistic onlookers misperceive this signature look of mine as: ‘unapproachable,’ ‘bored,’ ‘disengaged.’

I call it my concentrating face. Nothing negative is happening. At all. Sometimes, I catch it myself if I’m on my phone and accidentally activate the front-facing camera. Otherwise, I rarely see it. Those close to me have said it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you know me, it’s just a part of who I am. As I’ve gotten older, the face has no doubt gotten more ‘severe’ for no other reason than age in itself is scary, especially in those perceived as women. I’m not yet fully into my Hag Years, but perhaps at some point, men will quit telling me to smile.

I jest. (That won’t happen.) But this ‘unmasked’ face — The Nothing Face — has gotten me into trouble. Next time, I’ll tell you how.

References

If you log into Bluesky, from a former psychotherapist and parent of a child with NVLD is an excellent explainer, who also linked to .

Stryker, S. Transgender History. Seal Press. 2008. (You can at Internet Archive.)

Larre Bildeston is the author of a contemporary (aromantic) asexual romance (2023), set in Australia and New Zealand.