MY 11-YEAR-OLD son is funny and clever, kind and happy. He is also autistic. He doesn’t compulsively collect bus tickets, nor does he rock gently in the corner. But his condition will affect him for the rest of his life.

And the most scary and unpredictable time is the approaching teenage years when children learn about their condition and often tip into depression or even suicide. I think about the possibility of that every day, and what my husband and I can do to help him through it. And it comes down to self-esteem. Simon has the brains to have a fully independent place in the adult world — but only if he feels he is worth something.

Soon we will have to explain to him what he is, why he is different, why he needs support — and in a way that makes him believe in himself.

Simon has no idea yet that he is different — and so far, his eccentricities appear to the children around him to be just that. Years have already gone into helping him to cope in the world, helping him to make friends and understand other people, managing his social relationships.

We are now at the critical next stage. It starts with saying that we are all different — certainly on the outside, and sometimes on the inside too. So far, so good. But the next phase is to explain the ways in which he is different. Finally, a name is put to it — autistic. The theory is, in a year’s time he will understand why he thinks and acts differently and, crucially, see it as something that, if not positive, at least isn’t negative.

In the past few months, it has become fashionable among smart metropolitans to use the term autistic as a catch-all to denigrate any but the most socially adept men. And it’s always accompanied by a snigger. It’s in the media, it’s at dinner parties, now it’s at a party conference. Somehow it’s acceptable and clever — though those same smart metropolitans would never refer to someone physically maladroit as spastic.

My son cannot help who he is, what he was born with. The most I can do is make him feel good about himself. But how can that ever be possible if, when the time has come, he’s already heard the term autism used by people who should know better as a cruel joke. It is fodder for the playground bully. And it will eat away at the self-esteem of any autistic child or teenager able enough to understand that it is an insult.

The author is writing under a pseudonym