From The Alternative Choices Blog, April 1, 2013
Autism Awareness and Acceptance 2013
by Robert Naseef, Ph.D.
On Monday, March 25, I was part of "Voices in the Family" a public radio show with host Dan Gottlieb. Eustacia Cutler also lent her voice to the discussion. Eustacia is the mother of Temple Grandin, a well-known adult with autism, an author and speaker. Dan has been living with quadriplegia for 33 years, and I have a 33 year old adult son with autism. We had a wide-ranging and soul searching conversation discussing the worries and the heartaches as well as the extraordinary lessons that children with autism teach us about acceptance and about what it means to be family. The podcast of that discussion is now available through the WHYY website.
What does it mean to be aware of and to accept autism? Last March 1 in 88 children in the U. S. were diagnosed with autism. Just last week the federal government again revised the prevalence of autism upward, saying the developmental disorder now affects 1 in 50 children. All of these children and their families are profoundly affected-their parents, their brothers and sisters, their grandparents, their friends, and the larger community. How do we deal with awareness or acceptance of an issue that may not change or only changes slowly?
Read the rest on the Alternative Choices Blog.
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