Transcript

SHAUN

I've been called a retard. I've also been called spastic. I've also been called weird. So-- but I've also been called a bit cheeky, a troublemaker, which is more of an endearment word, which I like to say. So they're more endearment.

CIAN

Another label was a service user. Well, a learning-- a learning disabled person. Disabled. Autistic. Mentally challenged. Mentally deficient, which is an awful one.

DAYO

We're all just the same.

CIAN

Yeah, there were some really old labels that people used, like retard and spastic, and feeble-minded. Now they all seem like, and Mongoloid. They all seem like terrible things now. But just 50 odd years ago, people actually did seriously used to call people those kind of names.

PHIL

I believe my mum went back to the maternity hospital for just a checkup with Bernadette. And she was told that Bernadette was Mongoloid because that was the reference then. And--

CIAN

And they didn't call people those names to be horrible or nasty. It was just a word for them. Even the word imbecile I believe people used-- some people used to call people with learning difficulties. And people didn't usually mean it in a nasty way. It just became an abusive thing said by people.

I reckon in the future, the word special needs will be like the words spastic, or retard, et cetera, because these days, you get a lot of teenagers being abusive to people with learning difficulties saying ‘special needs, spastic’. And I don't think special needs-- now that is one that really gives me a bee in my bonnet. And I don't really want to be thought of a special just because I have autism. I would like to be special. We want to be ourselves for who we are, not what we are.