Today is
World Autism Awareness Day. We’re supposed to change our Facebook profile
pictures to blue to spread awareness. Just like when we were to change ours to
purple for World Cancer Day and to Go Red to fight women’s heart disease, not to
mention when everything in creation goes pink for breast cancer awareness. (And,
as my breast cancer survivor friend said, “ruined the color pink”.)
I can’t
help but think making things blue changes very little for the autistic
community, kind of like what Secretary’s Day does for secretaries. We’re so
saturated with awareness days and causes and people running 5k’s for causes. I
suppose awareness is the first step towards understanding, but shouldn’t we be
past that point? I think a lot of people are aware of developmental disorders
like autism and ADHD, but they still have very little understanding of them. Any
psychological disorder seems to be too vague for people to fully accept. If it
doesn’t show up on an X-ray then it must not really exist.
So instead
of acceptance, I’m seeing a lot of blame. There’s a misinformed collective
blaming vaccines for autism (with no scientific proof) and ultimately blaming
parents for deigning to vaccinate their children against life threatening diseases.
The paleo dieters blame parents for feeding their children bread and sugar,
making an anecdotal assumption that these foods are the causes of ADHD.
As a
society, we don’t want to hear, “We don’t have all the answers.” We don’t want
to accept that science is a process and psychological disorders are not always
fully understood. We want to be able to point and say, “See? That’s the cause,”
and choose an answer that appears common sense. Science is rarely common sense,
but then again, people like to pick and choose the science they believe. Then
they become upset by their growing (misinformed) beliefs. Why aren’t doctors
doing something about it when all these bloggers and “health” coaches have
figured it all out? It must be a conspiracy. It becomes us vs. doctors and the
real issues don’t get addressed.
It’s
understandable why some parents of the affected children want to believe these
things; we’re overwhelmed and we want answers NOW. But why do people without
children or the parents of healthy ones perpetuate these harmful myths? Perhaps
they’re scared it could happen to them, so having an “answer” makes them feel
well armored. It’s similar to blaming the victim of a crime. If we believe the
victim did something wrong, then we can also believe we wouldn’t make that same
mistake, thus it won’t happen to us. Or it could just be that maybe people like
to be judgmental.
Whatever
the case, we need to get past the faux awareness into true awareness. What can
each of us do to actually help these children?
·
Support early intervention. You could write
letters to push our legislators to get funding for early intervention for the
services these children need. Every research study shows the earlier children
get help, the more progress they make. People who can afford it aren’t the only
ones who should have access to it.
·
Support financial resources for integration at
public schools. Homeschooling is not the answer for every child who doesn’t fit
the public school mold. Public education is the right of every American child. During
my son’s time in elementary school, I’ve been a strong advocate for getting him
the correct intervention so he could have the best possible education. I am
extremely lucky that his school had the financial resources and was willing to
use them in order to make this happen. It included hiring an outside consultant
for an extended period of time who was an expert in the field. It changed
everything for all of us. My son went from not being able to even remain in the
classroom to being fully participatory aside the other students. It also helped
that the excellent staff at his school were extremely receptive to learning behavioral
strategies from the consultant. Although every child is different, the
principal acknowledged that because of us, subsequent special needs children in
that school will also benefit.
·
Don’t believe every blog post, media hype, or
so-called “research study” you read. This way you might not feel so quick to give
your insight from the two minutes you spent reading an article to a beleaguered
parent who has spent the majority of her motherhood doing everything in her
power to help her child. Don’t share dubious statistics or fearful theories
about your views on the horrors of medications with a parent who has spent
countless hours consulting with specialists about said medications. In short,
be skeptical about the things you read on the Internet and assume that a parent
of an affected child knows a hell of a lot more about it than you do. And don’t
presume to know what you would do if you were in her shoes.
There are
better ways to be supportive and “aware” of autism, ADHD, or any other developmental
disorder. You can learn more about them by looking on their actual websites for
accurate information. You can learn about the symptoms so if you encounter a
child, you can be more accepting of their difficulties. You can teach your own
children not to be afraid of differences and to reach out to all kinds of kids.
Let’s move a
step further than the feel-good awareness colors and charity runs. Let’s each
in our own small way actively do something to make a difference. A simple hug
wouldn’t hurt either.
