8. Word Choice 🌶

It's OT Month, and also Nicole's birthday month! In this brief little treat of an episode, we talk about word choice. She's a mild gal on the OT spiciness scale. We begin by examining some terms identified by Brock Cook, in the most recent episode of his OT podcast Occupied, as terms that should be used with caution, or perhaps, not at all. Per protocol, we had thoughts to add, discussing the way we have used these terms in our episodes. With Autism Awareness Month underway, we also wanted to discuss the use of language around autism, citing this article from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network to start the discussion. Though we didn't mention them in the episode, Autism Level Up is also doing excellent work in this area, and is an amazing resource to learn more about autism advocacy. Changing habits around language use is difficult work, but it comes much easier when you understand other perspectives!