Skip to main content

Autism Awareness Month



Autism Awareness

The month of April is given over to Autism Awareness Month with hundreds of activities and events taking place to raise awareness and much-needed funds for the National Autistic Society.

It begins with World Autism Awareness Day celebrated on 2nd April each year that starts World Autism Acceptance Week from 2 - 8 April and aims to raise awareness, with educational events, exhibitions, social media posts and discussions, bringing people from all walks of life together.

Autism Spectrum

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability (or differbility as Ryan has described it) that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people.  It is also a spectrum condition, which means that, while all people with autism share certain difficulties, their condition will affect them in different ways.  Asperger syndrome is a form of autism and the diagnosis given to Ryan, however this term is no longer used now.

Many people with autism are of average or above average intelligence. Some people with autism experience over (hyper) or under (hypo) sensitivity to sounds, touch, taste, smells, light or colours.  People with autism often become extremely anxious in unexpected and unfamiliar situations. You can read more about what autism spectrum condition (ASC) is here.

Autism Spectrum Condition

Autism Campaigns

The so-called campaign group ‘Autism Speaks’ uses the tagline ‘Light it up blue’ for Autism. However, the organisation has come under increasing fire and scrutiny recently regarding their approach to wanting to cure autism as a disease. This stance has angered many families and individuals calling for boycotts of their campaigning. I personally do not agree with this mindset or manifesto, but regardless of your opinion of this particular group, they have certainly got the world talking about this emotive topic.


Raise Awareness

There are many ways in which you can get involved and raise awareness whether you choose to ‘Wear Red Instead’ for the group Actually Autistic or you could choose to be ‘Positively Purple’ in support of the National Autistic Society (NAS).  I am a member of the NAS and am extremely grateful for the support and guidance I have received from them since Ryan’s diagnosis in 2008. I personally choose however to not wear any particular colour, but instead talk, talk and talk some more to anyone and everyone who will lend me half an ear.


Differbility

As far as I am concerned you can wear any colour you like, so long as you open up conversations, increase exposure and move towards global acceptance. Take part in, organise or sponsor; walks, bakes, fancy dress, auctions, raffles, quizzes, fun runs. The list is endless and you are only limited by your imagination in whatever you fancy to spread the word for this unique way of life. The more unique and different the better. Celebrate the differbility as opposed to a disability.

It matters not how you get involved, just get involved. Comment below to let me know how you advocate for autism awareness, or join the chat on social media with the hashtags #autismawareness and #waaw

Parenting an Autistic Child


Comments

  1. Anon6 April 2017 at 03:04

    You carry the 'Flag' perfectly xxxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @SarahLou6 April 2017 at 08:37

      I don't think anyone is perfect, but thank you for the compliment. Thank you for reading and taking time to join the discussion. Sarah.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comment. We appreciate having you along for the ride.

Popular Posts

Missing Education due to Illness

The Importance of Attendance If you read any news articles on education, correspondence from your child’s school, or are simply clued up on parenting then you will know the importance of school attendance. Schools place a great deal of focus on targets and will often offer incentives and competitions to encourage and increase attendance figures, but what if your child has a serious illness. What happens if they really are not well enough to attend school. What happens then? Attendance targets at Ryan's school are currently set at 95% attendance for the school year. Therefore realistically your child can only miss 10 school days due to illness. Medical appointments such as GP or Dentist do not count, but you are encouraged to make these appointments outside of the school day where feasibly possible. If your child consistently misses school, even if it is only one day a week, that equates to 39 days over the school year. Even missing one day in a week results in pressure on the ...
11 comments
Read more

Questions to ask after Cancer diagnosis

Cancer Sucks I have shared with you Ryan's lymphoma journey where we have talked about the ups, the downs, the protocols for drugs, the side effects, but I realised recently I have never shared the questions. This post is all about what to ask when you receive a diagnosis of cancer. Receiving a cancer diagnosis is never ever going to be seen as good news. It can never be dressed up or made pretty. It is devastating, it is gut-wrenching, it is life-changing. There is so much information to process you will not think of the questions you need to ask or you will have hundreds of questions you want to ask all at once. These are just some of the questions you can ask once you have processed the news, in order to gain a better understanding of your fight ahead. General Information What type of cancer do I have? Where is it located? What are the risk factors for this disease? Is this type of cancer caused by genetic factors? Are other members of my family at risk? What lifestyle c...
5 comments
Read more

Chemotherapy Cycle 5

What is Normal? With this being our penultimate cycle of chemotherapy I have had several family and friends comment to me “oh I bet you can't wait to get back to normal”. This has really thrown and upset me because it seems to come across that they have failed to comprehend the fact that we have 2-3 years of maintenance ahead and at least two more general anaesthetic surgeries. Not to mention physiotherapy as it is expected Ryan will take 12+ months to heal from the effects of being poisoned from the inside out. Normal is long way off yet. While everyone else appears to all be getting excited that Ryan is coming to an end of his chemotherapy protocol treatment, Ryan himself is becoming more and more tired with the cumulative effect of the onslaught of the chemotherapy drugs and is spending long periods of time in hospital after each cycle with infections due to his impaired immune system now as a result. Ryan is far from excited. Ryan is exhausted. We still have one more cycle t...
6 comments
Read more

Worrying About the Future

  Worrying About the Future. Ryan said to me recently. "Childhood gave me Autism. My teens gave me cancer. What will adulthood bring?" Big worries for someone so young. So much pressure and conditioning are placed upon us about the importance of education and the set path that the majority of us will take through the system to university and/or the job market. What happens if you do not follow that path or miss so much education that the path is no longer open to you. How do you plan for the future? What options are there available to you? Ryan was excluded from his primary school in year 2 and I home schooled him for a year while we worked with the Educational Psychologist to find a placement that would suit his complex needs at the time. Due to his speech, language and communication difficulties the decision was made to withdraw him from Welsh-medium education and focus on English only which meant our choices were limited in the area of Wales that we call home. We...
Post a Comment
Read more

Peritonitis

Emergency Surgery On the morning of 25 October 2016 Ryan was complaining that his PEG feeding tube was unbearably painful. He was due for a review anyway that day at Velindre Cancer Centre and a PEG specialist nurse came for to look at Ryan. She said the site was a bit weepy and raw, she thinks he possibly caught or pulled it in the night. She is confident that it is fine and she also gave it another good clean.  A week on and we are back to square one. The district nurse came out on Monday 31 October 2016 to advance (turn) the PEG tube as is needed each week after the first month. The nurse was unable to move the disc and caused Ryan an incredible amount of pain. We ended up having to go to the Teenage Cancer Trust ward in Cardiff, where two gastro nurses met us and spent the best part of an hour, torturing Ryan while they 'forced' the PEG to move, which they eventually did. Or so they thought.  The following week, 7 November 2016, the district Nurse came again to the ...
7 comments
Read more