Training Calendar
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Wise Webinar Series: Ask A Non-Speaking Autistic: Why Do Functional Labels Hurt?
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April 27, 2022
2021-22 Wise Webinar Series
Ask A Non-Speaking Autistic: Why Do Functional Labels Hurt?
In this session, Niko Boskovic explains why the use of functional labels like “low functioning” and “severe autism” are misleading and actually hurtful to disabled people. He shares his perspective as a disabled young person who relies on personal support workers and job coaches.
Learning Objectives:
- Attendees will learn about the harm functional labels can have for people with disabilities
- Attendees will learn about the ableist origin of these labels
- Attendees will learn why disabled people should be centered in defining their needs and why support staff should use their person-identified terminology
Niko Boskovic
Niko Boskovic is an 20-year-old man living in Portland, Oregon where he attended high school and graduated in June of 2019. Before high school, he was homeschooled and underwent a lot of therapy to treat his autism, but the thing was, he never really needed most of it. While he was minimally-speaking, it became clear once he learned how to communicate on a letterboard that he was quite intelligent and had been paying attention all along.
Since that time, he has dedicated himself to writing about life as a low-speaking autistic, and finds that he is best able to express his lived experience through poetry. Niko writes a monthly blog for Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities (https://www.ocdd.org/nikos-blog/), and has loved presenting at disability conferences, especially when there are parents in the audience. He has had poetry published in Montana Mouthful (2020); Lunch Ticket’s Amuse-Bouche: Spotlight (2019); In Parentheses Magazine (Fall 2020); and The Pointed Circle (2021).