In Praise of Autism - getting a lot of flack
September 29, 2009
This came out from new york times and there was a lot of discussion in the autism community. There is concern from the autism community that we are sending the wrong message to the world - that individuals with autism can all function at the levels described. We know this to not be true. Many individuals with autism will require 24 hour care and support for the rest of their lives. And, this should be a huge societal concern. However, equally as important, there are many individuals with autism that can thrive in the world and we need to raise awareness to this fact. Our goal should be to take every individual with autism and work hard to get the most out of each person that we can, and to never stop trying. If we didn’t have these examples of individuals with autism who succeed in life, what would be our motivation to keep trying, to keep searching for answers, to keep investing money and resources into each of these individuals? I think this awareness and the concepts raised in this article are terribly important. Of course, my child is a higher functioning individual and does have his whole life ahead of him that I believe is full of possibility. I am one of the lucky ones.
http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/in-praise-of-autism/?hp
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