children on the spectrum aren't retarded, so yeah, why not?
I think the idea expressed is accusing someone of being intellectually and mentally lethargic, asleep at the wheel or asleep on their feet, and it's a call to snap out of it, or to wake up. Rouse yourself, basically, is what I mean by it. It means when I use it, that you're asleep on your feet. Snap out of it, .... That word. Snap out of it, that word. 'That word,' that we're talking about. Snap out of it, ....
That's what I mean by it. I don't at all mean to compare anything with autistic people. They have no choice. The people I'm thinking of believe things that autistic people might believe, but also what people who are asleep at the wheel might believe. And I know they're not autistic, so I wish to convey, "Wake up!"
"That word!"
I find generally that people don't respond favorably to it at all, and that therefore it's usually just my own blowing off of steam, is what I must logically conclude. Since I've thought about parents who have autistic kids, I've really decided that I can't ever utter the word unless I'm overly complicatedly making sure that it's not being recorded or overheard, which makes using the word too expensive for me; too rich for my blood.
So I'm plodding through an attempted change of course.