Autism Awareness
Autism Awareness|Lifelong Pathways
Well it is April and that means Autism awareness month. For me it seems to mean something different each year, and I think this year it is more about Autism acceptance than Autism awareness.
We are nearly five years into our journey of officially being an autism family. Well, we have been on this journey for over five years but autism isn’t diagnosed at birth.
Diagnosis Day
I can still remember that day when I was sitting in the psychologists office and she said “I think we have enough for a diagnosis”. It was almost as if I didn’t have to tell her anything further. I’ll never forget what that felt like. The grief was instant, but so to was the validation. I wasn’t making this up. It was real, and that was why every day was so difficult. Difficult for me, but now I was actually able to start to understand what my son was feeling and going through.
I certainly didn’t have much Autism Awareness back then. I had only just made the link between social challenges, speech delay and sensory processing issues. The so called triangle of impairments.
A Whole New Language
I soon learned to change my language, not only in terms of the vocabulary needed to talk to professionals about my son, but it was more than this. I no longer wanted to talk about his strengths and weaknesses, but rather his strengths and challenges. The term ‘weakness’ really gets you off on the wrong foot, as it immediately sets a negative opinion of him.
Undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges we face, and are still facing, is the low expectations others have of my sons. Yes, they both have Autism Spectrum Disorder. They were diagnosed within 18 months of each other. Some people immediately think that they are incapable of something without even talking to them, or to us, first. Once someone has made up their mind it is very difficult to convince them otherwise. This makes daily situations even more challenging.
The amount of scaffolding that we do in order to go out of the house is incredible. Most other families would find it difficult to relate to this. It is really one of these things that you just have to live with in order to fully comprehend. In fact, I’m certain that at lot of the things that we do are just second nature, because we have been doing it for so long.
For children that thrive on routine and don’t like change, it is so challenging for us as parents when every single day is so different. We never know what to expect each morning. Certainly some days go smoothly and are a real joy. Others are the complete opposite.
Autism Acceptance
So I have certainly been on a journey of Autism Awareness. Every day is Autism Aware in our house. We even raise the awareness of people who visit our home. That’s why we have this sign at our front door: “Please bring understanding, patience, tolerance and compassion when you ring this bell.” What I would hope is that society becomes more accepting of Autism, and celebrates neurodiversity. The world would be a very different place if we didn’t have people like Thomas Eddison and Albert Einstein.
For more information about Autism Awareness month, please refer to the following site: