Autism Information and Advice

differentiated from Autism by the person’s language skills), Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Classical Autism, High Functioning Autism, Kanner Autism, Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). These different terms are used by different groups of people, depending upon the agenda of their diagnosis, the toolkits used to for the diagnosis, as well as the primary characteristics of the person undergoing the diagnosis. In the UK, ASD is the most commonly used term, particularly by medical professionals. Here at the Autism Information and Advice service, we prefer to use the term ASC, as this is becoming more commonly used by the ASC community, as the language has more positive connotations. The important thing to note is that the variety of names used to describe ASC and the traits they