April is "Autism Awareness Month". How can we make more people aware of this condition?

Question

http://www.autismspeaks.org/

Thank you for your answer, and have a wonderful day! :)

http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer

I'm not American, and don't support or have any kind of connection with these sites. My only intention with this question is to raise awareness about autism.

Answer 1

Seriously? I think you need celebrities -- those with close connections to a person with autism -- to champion the cause. There would need to be a series of advertisements and a large grocery store chain that was willing to push the envelope a little.

While poster children cause a sympathetic response, stories would be a better way of presenting the condition to people. (Maybe Reader's Digest and People Magazine could run some stories.) It would be nice to hear about the successes and needs of adults with autism. What are their stories? How can we help? After all, autism can be pretty much invisible to the casual observer, and in my experience children with autism are often very handsome people -- not the sort that garner sympathy.

Better advertising. Locally, there are a couple agencies that help adults with special needs of all sorts. There are often real paying jobs (ex: community outreach specialists) with those agencies for people who would like to support citizens with disabilities. And they aren't difficult jobs. They require having a clean record and being available to drive and spend time with a person with special needs. Yet these jobs are advertised quietly in the classifieds -- even though they are fun, well-paid jobs. It would be a real blessing to parents and caregivers to have more caring people available to fill these positions!

The best thing, Moon..., is probably to do just what you are doing. Talk about it. It's easy as a person needing help to wonder why it isn't available. Yet, it is the people dealing with autism who need to educate the public. From our little worlds, autism may be quite invisible, and we may have a pretty skewed understanding of what autism actually is.
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Updated 4/06/07 -- (Smart Kat... gave some great information.) After reading the post below, I would like to add that although Autism does not necessarily mean mental retardation/learning disability/developmental disability, those with autism are (in my experience) served through mental health services agencies. It's important to know that there is a mental health component and that services are available through these agencies.

Answer 2

Well, blogging about it is certainly one way. A good friend of mine put it in her blog, even to the point of making the background of her 360 page the puzzle design ribbon which the promoters of the awareness month have used.

Another way is to research the topic yourself, and become aware of the complexity of the problem. It is also a good idea to look at several of the more controversial issues currently surrounding the subject of autism.

One big problem is that there are many different types of autism, and it is therefore dreadfully easy for a child (it's almost always children) to be mis-diagnosed. Autism has become the catch-all term meaning "there's something wrong with this child" to some doctors, which does no good at all and only frightens parents. Still, many children who would be helped by an accurate diagnosis of autism are thought to be simply cranky or ornery; a "discipline problem."

There is also significant evidence that some treatments or therapies (including medications) do more harm than good, so parents are inevitably pretty confused as to what to do to help their children. Still, the one thing we clearly need is more research, so if you have the odd few dollars to spare, donate them to a research effort.

Answer 3

Dear MoonRiver,

Most people are inherently only interested in things that affect them directly, and pay only scant interest to what is not.

This is a coping strategy to protect us from being overwhelmed by lots of messages and appeals daily we receive daily.

Thus, if the message is about autism, it is likely that only those who are affected by autism, or are likely be affected by autism, will be interested.


I suggest that we choose our target audience carefully, and do what we can do that other people are not doing. For this, it helps to define our life purpose and relationship to the world.

In other words, it is not about what everyone should be doing. It is what we are inspired to do, considering our abilities, situation and life experience. It is about the need that we notice and are inspired to fill.


My best effort to date is shown on my website "i autistic". This is what I can do as someone with first-hand experience with autism.

Other people may have different ideas and projects because they are in a different situation than me.


I believe that if we all do our best to live meaningful and joyful lives, we will automatically make the world a better place.

Answer 4

I think what people need to be aware of is the broad spectrum of "Autism Spectrum Disorder."

All you have to do is check out previous questions here about autism to know there is much confusion.

(What is the) Difference between autism and mentally retarted? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ai.fGUTvIXVHgV0X2LTL7FXty6IX?qid=20070326191847AAw1wOy&show=7#profile-info-0eYZylgUaa

I have also seen questions asking if all autistic people were geniuses. I'll see if I can find them.

What is the life expectancy for people with autism? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AizubAWC8C67sRX8p4G8cnbty6IX?qid=20070210125458AArTvpK&show=7#profile-info-AA12014149

Why should there be a cure for autism? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Akp.I9jVs5ASSuXCSqRdXGvsy6IX?qid=20070204200238AABSp5A&show=7#profile-info-AA11247439

Answer 5

One way is to stop being afraid to talk about it. So many people that I know that have Autistic in their family don't want anyone to know. If we don't open our mouths and tell people about it nothing will be done.

Good examples are diabetes, AIDS, STD's. Someone opened their mouth about it and the ball started rolling.

There needs to be a fund raiser nation wide that is highly publicized also.