I’m sure someone will argue with something up above. Anyway, this is the end of the ‘Autism Awareness Month’ posts. I’m curious to know if anybody learned anything interesting about autism. Not only from my posts, but over the years or even recently. Education is the best way to get people to understand autism and not jump to harmful conclusions when interacting with someone who is autistic. Below, I’ve added any information that people have shared this month that they found interesting. Please feel free to do more in the comments.
I will say that any comments made to insult, belittle, or be any way harmful towards people with autism will be deleted. Thank you.
Legends of Windemere 
I never knew that people blamed autism on poor parenting. Since I know several good parents with children on the spectrum as well as adults on the spectrum, I know that is a myth! I agree that education is essential. A friend wrote a book to help other parents. Another friend started a foundation. One of my nephews (I consider the children of dear friends to be nephews and nieces along with my blood nephews and nieces) is on the spectrum. He spoke with his mom at a writer conference I attended the other day. He is a good writer and public speaker!
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‘Autism destroys families’ seems to be an offshoot of the bad parenting myth. It’s unfortunate that the myths get more press than the truth.
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Many thanks for taking the time to help educate us about autism, Charles, I certainly learned from your posts.
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Thanks. Glad they were useful.
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How can you blame parents for poor parenting, although I was a poor parent myself until we discovered our son had ADHD. I had a number of children in the class I tutored in middle school who were autistic – all different. It was a challenge to work with each of them individually but also fun.
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People will blame everything except genetics because it creates a reason that can be changed.
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Instead of working with it.
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I had never thought about it before but did learn, autism is not something that can be cured but life can be improved with proper support.
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There are many plenty of programs to help too.
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That i a good thing.
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I think your posts have been great in helping people to understand autism, and to show the many different ways it manifests.
Well done, Charles.
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Thanks. Been an interesting month for autism awareness.
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I believe I did learn some things. Certainly increased my awareness.
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Glad to be of service.
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The thing that has struck me during this month is how many people who make some version of the claim “Back in MY day, there weren’t so many autistic people.” This is just plain arrogant and wrong.
There sure were autistic people around. Just because one person didn’t notice them doesn’t mean they weren’t there. What it really means, is that person had blinders on to avoid looking at the world around them.
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Exactly. Higher understanding means better and more diagnoses. Many autistic ‘back in the day’ were diagnosed with something else. I remember a ton of ADHD kids and I’d bet many were really autistic.
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As a teacher, I’m always shocked/disappointed at the lack of knowledge and understanding.
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I’ve come to expect most people not knowing about autism. Only what fiction tells them.
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Sad!
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