April is a great month for so many reasons. For Notre Damers this year, it’s the month during which spring finally arrives, Easter break rolls around, and summer is quickly approaching! Several Notre Dame traditions also take place in April, such as Fisher Regatta, Lewis Crush, Notre Dame Day, Antostal, and many others. But did you know that April is also Autism Awareness Month?
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is an umbrella term for a group of complex developmental disorders. For example, Asperger’s syndrome falls under the autistic spectrum. Characteristics of any of these disorders can include difficulty with social interaction, verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors.
Autism can also be associated with intellectual disability, difficulty in motor cooridination and attention, and physical health issues, such as sleep and gastrointestinal problems. Some individuals are extremely gifted in music, art, math, academic and/or visual skills. Autism is called a “spectrum” disorder because every person with autism has different symptoms and different severity of symptoms, roughly ranging from mild to severe. Every individual is totally unique.
Autism has grown increasingly prevalent in our world, with tens of millions of individuals on the autistic specturm today. In the 1970s and 1980s, one out of two thousand children was diagnosed with autism per year. Now, that number has grown to one out of sixty-eight children. This increase is probably partially due to better understanding and recognition of autism in the medical field, thus raising the numbers of diagnoses over time. However, I think the size of this increase is too great to only be accounted for by better recognition of autism.
The causes of autism are still unclear, although recent research suggests that there are several genetic and environmental factors at work. I would like to state explicitly, given the recent vaccination controversy, that VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM! This “study” was completely and deliberately faked by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in 1998, who was paid 435,000 pounds by a law firm that planned to sue vaccination manufacturers. It makes me furious that he did this because it makes autism sound like a scary, horrible thing, worse than any potentially fatal illness that vaccinations protect against. That attitude is both extremely sad and extremely hurtful to autistic individuals. Autistic people are different, not less.
Here’s some other misconceptions I’d like to bust:
First, autism is not caused by poor parenting or cold, distant, “refrigerator” mothers. There are many, complex causes of autism that are genetic and environmental, but autism has nothing to do with parenting.
Second, not all autistic individuals are savants, like Rain Man. Certainly some are, but one autistic individual or even a group cannot tell you about all people on the autistic spectrum. I’m probably going to say this a ton of times in this article, but I think it’s a very important thing to understand; every person with autism is totally unique. In the same way, not all autistic individuals have mental disabilities. There is a tendency for people to under- or over- estimate the abilities of autistic individuals based on prior assumptions about autism, and we need to break this tendency. Every autistic person is totally unique!
Finally, there is a tragically mistaken misconception that autistic individuals are cold, lack empathy, or don’t want to form meaningful relationships. This could not be further from the truth. Autistic people absolutely want to enter into meaningful relationships with loved ones, and they care a great deal about the people in their lives. Autistic individuals may have a harder time with social interaction, forming relationships, or making their feelings known, but that doesn’t mean that they dont want to love or be loved!
How can you raise autism awareness? Donations to Autism Speaks, Autism Society, or other autism awareness orginizations are great, and there are other things you can do in addition to that. For example, you can use the power of the Internet to further awareness. You can use social media to follow orginizations on Facebook or Twitter, or you can share positive articles online with your friends. This could also be by changing your profile picture on social networking sites to a supportive image of a symbol for autism awareness this month. For example, my current Facebook and Twitter profile picture is this:
There are several other images you can use, many which specifically cite April as Autism Awareness month. You can also look for the puzzle piece ribbon (puzzle pieces represent the complexity of autism and the uniqueness of each individual who has autism).
Just remember: Raising autism awareness is awesome, but is it not the end goal. Awareness should always lead to acceptance, understanding, respect, and love for autistic individuals and the autistic community. Autistic individuals are unique, gifted, and absolutely wonderful people! We need to work toward eliminating hurtful stigmas and misconceptions about autism and autistic individuals so we come to know the amazing individuals on the autistic spectrum.
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