The Autism Positivity Flash Blog event was an excellent idea. There were so many moving, heartwarming stories to read, and many new friends were made amongst the Autistic Blogging Community. People are still retweeting these stories (thanks for the mention this morning @Aspiekid!) and people are still coming to the blogs to read and learn.
So I was thinking to myself “What more can be done?” – especially since finding out about the horrendous treatment and subsequent exclusion of my profoundly autistic, non-verbal teenage son (more to follow about that later). People still don’t understand us, and often shun us because we are “different”. We don’t even need to say anything; it’s a feeling that NT’s get about us. Some even fear us; often for our differentness, and sometimes for our unusually high intellect and ability to grasp ideas and learn new things quickly and easily.
I have a Pinterest account. After this morning’s conversation with my son’s foster father (who feels just as I do about the whole mess, and the nature of the headmistress in particular) I decided to create a new board – Speaking Out for Autism.
I have begun by pinning my flashblog entry and I may well follow this with my comparisons between Frankenstein’s Creation and how it feels to be autistic.
I think I shall leave the horror of what has happened to my son for now, as that is very personal. I realise that anybody who sees my Autism pins can find those entries, but I’d rather not have the whole sordid tale available on Pinterest. That’s an invasion of my son’s privacy, and the privacy of his foster family.
With permission, I would like to start pinning from other blogs about autism. I wish dearly to get the word out there, loud and clear for anybody to see. We deserve recognition; we deserve acceptance; we deserve understanding. Those most affected deserve services and nurturing and guidance that those of us higher on the spectrum don’t need. We are people, not freaks.
If you have a Pinterest account, please consider doing the same as I am? Also, please let me know your Pinterest name (you can email me) so that we can find each other.
Combining many voices in to one can cause the tsunami of recognition that we are aiming for.
As a retired school teacher I find your comments understandable. I spent a few moments reading back into your entries. The lack of understanding of autism and the frustration of knowing that most of my colleagues could care less was very frustrating. To sit in the lunch room and/or teacher meetings and listen to them all complain about little “Johnny” or “Jane’s” lack or progress, or what trouble makers they were was infuriating! It doesn’t take a genius to see the symptoms, and only a few hours of training to learn them if you are ignorant of what to look for. Over the years I received more than a few children who had already (by grades one and two) been BRANDED as weird, odd, lazy, trouble makers, etc. Taking a bit of time to learn about each of these branded children worked a miracle every time.
One such child came to me early on in my career. His mother took him in for assessment and actually invited me to come along to speak with the Doctors. It was an awesome experience. After the assessment observation, and testing, they came to the conclusion he had aspergers and outlined his needs for the classroom (extra attention, and a computer for his writing). I could not believe the reaction the school had! They complained!
IDIOTS. There was no cost to the district because his needs were covered by outside organizations. It simply meant a little extra effort on the teacher’s part, and a computer for his writing (His printing was illegible and he needed spell check) which I freely gave (including the computer!). The next year his third grade teacher made a big stink about how hard and difficult he was to deal with… His mom pulled him out of our school and I never saw them again. Sad. I often think of them and wonder how they are doing.
Thanks for visiting me today, ~ Lynda
Thank you Lynda. This attitude that your ex colleagues had is exactly what I’m trying to speak out against. You would think that an SN school would understand their autistic pupils, but apparently not. I am sickened and horrified by what was done to my son, and his foster family and I all agree that it was over the top. We shall all be refusing to send him back to that school – he’ll be 16 next month and so there’s no legal stuff in the way; he can be removed from education and wait to be accepted into his college (which he has visited a few times and absolutely loves).
I spoke to both R’s foster dad and his new social worker today (his previous SW is on maternity leave) and they both seem to agree that the way R was handled was heavy-handed and unnecessary. I shall be following up the account of R’s treatment with entries about what has been said by all parties.
Thank you for stopping by. I’m looking forward to getting to know you. I greatly appreciate your words on this subject.
I’m not on pininterest but it seems like a good idea. Anyplace you can push something foreward, you do. Good luck.
Thank you; I’ll let you know how it goes
As another thought, I’d be happy to put the flash blog gravatar on my blog, on the side as a show of support, and link it to the flash blog site–or something to that effect. Others might be happy to do that as well. Might be worth a call for volunteers.
What an excellent idea Sabrina; hopefully some of my other followers will pick up the ball and run with it, so to speak
This is wonderful–you will make a difference to a lot of people!
Here’s hoping – I especially hope that the idea will catch on
I don’t know anything about pinterest, but I would think its a good idea – getting to another community of people can’t be bad.
That was my thought too; I hope it takes off.
If it does, I’ll start doing the same to raise Epilepsy Awareness too