Awareness

This week I got involved in a little online discussion. I'm on a cloth diapering forum (yeah, I am that much of a nerd, or whatever you call someone who is obsessed with what goes on my baby's bottom) and I usually stay away from the Parenting Talk area. Too much drama, too many "mommy wars"...I like to stick to the cloth chatter. But this week, probably because I wanted to avoid doing homework, I wandered over into that dangerous land. And of course, when I saw the title of a thread that read "Autism?" I had to click. I HAD to. And then, when I read what people wrote...well, I just HAD to respond.

A woman had said that her son has speech delays, and that their speech therapist "randomly" mentioned that she thought the boy may be on the autism spectrum. The mom was suprised, and when she listed the reasons that the speech therapist had given she clearly thought that they were not good enough reasons. So she ended the post "asking" if it seemed like her son has austim, or if her speech therapist is just crazy.

And then there were the responses...

"Does he smile? laugh?"
"Is he affectionate?"
"Does he ever look in your eyes?"

The stereotypes were trotted out. And it made me feel so sad. So I just had to step up and let this lady know that she was being handed a whole bunch of ignorance. I had to let those other ladies know that what they were asking is not only ignorant, it's offensive.

So that's what I told them. I told them that those were stereotypes and that there is this wide spectrum and that those questions were not accurate ways to rule out the possibility of autism. And I also told them that as the mother of a beautiful, happy, affectionate little girl that gazes into my eyes, what they wrote was offensive to my senses. Because the implication is that kids with autism are sad. And you know...I'm sure there are kids out there on the spectrum that don't smile much, but I sure haven't met them. In fact, the kids that I know are a bunch of giggling smiling little imps.

So I started to think about Awareness. That seems to be the thing for any cause or disorder or illness. People post stupid things on their facebook in the name of Awareness. I hear people drop the phrase all the time "trying to spread Awareness of...". Here's the thing- most of the time, when I see people spreading awareness, they are simply stating facts of the prevelance of their chosen disorder. Very rarely do I see anyone spreading helpful information. And what is the result? A society that knows that more boys than girls have autism, but still walk around thinking that these children are all sitting in a corner, crying, and completely cold. They don't even know that they don't have a clue.

I don't care if you are Aware of the existence of autism if you never bother to learn what it is and what it isn't.

So, if you are reading this because you know me from way back when, or maybe Diva Girl is the only autistic child you've been exposed to, you might want to read a bit about autism sometime. I found this page to have a pretty good overview (disclaimer: I haven't read everything on their website, so I'm sure there may be stuff somehwere on there I disagree with, but this page has one of the best overviews that I could find that wasn't completely depressing)

Spread some real awareness! Especially since the ladies responded that those were questions asked to them by pediatricians, so apparently even doctors are spreading misinformation (don't even get me started) It's up to us, folks.