Autism Awareness Month, 2007
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
Autism Awareness Month was established in 1972 by the Autism Society of America, since then, we are seeeing more and more awareness every year. When I started my career in 1993, most people I talked to had not heard of autism, or if they had, they had only seen Rainman and thought that all people with autism were savants.
This year is probably the most productive I have seen in getting the word out about autism! It is unfortunate though that so many people still do not know about autism, and I have parents tell me all the time, even now, that their child with autism was told to be “fine” by their pediatrician only to find out a few months later that their child has autism and that they have missed out on months (or years) of intervention.
I am encouraged by the increase in media attention that autism is receiving, and I was thrilled to see that Oprah FINALLY did a show about it, which included the most active group in the media, Autism Speaks. The View also did a show about autism, as have many news shows this month. Jenny McCarthy will also appear on The View on May 3rd to talk about her story and her son Evan.
Many magazines, including Discover, have published articles about autism this month and Oxford University Press released 2 very helpful blog postings regarding autism:
Stress and Coping: http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/stress_coping/
Helping Children With Autism Learn: http://blog.oup.com/2007/04/children_autism/
Awareness is the first step and it is nice to see that more and more people are talking about autism, but, it is my hope that we will start to see more and more people talking about solutions for children today!
Posted in Autism in the News, Media, General Thoughts | 1 Comment »
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