April is Autism Awareness Month

This month we recognize autism. It is a waging war continuing to take over the normalcy of human life. As the years progress, the rate of children being born autistic is between 10%-17%. Autism is quickly becoming the fastest developmental disability.  It is proven that autism is actually more prevalent in boys. In the most recent CDC report, it was found that 1 in 50 children would be found autistic. Before that in 2012, it was 1 in 88. So as you can see it is a rapid progression of a disability that is still not found curable.

That is just the statistical viewpoint of this issue, but there’s more. In seeing the first signs of a child with this disability you will find in their first year they become less responsive with their words, or eye contact. Most children are found with an obsession in lining their toys up after one another and don’t respond when their name is called. But children don’t officially become diagnosed until the ages of 3 and 4. Now Autism Spectrum Disorder is the latest way to map out the spectrum of autism one may have. It is split up into four developmental disorders: Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, Atypical Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and Autistic Disorder.

Once a child is diagnosed with autism it places stress on families across the nation. Marriages break a part, arguments erupt and stress piles on. It also becomes a financial burden. When thinking of autism people tend to think of young children. But people forget that this disability lasts forever. These people grow up living a different life then we do, seeing things in ways we don’t and it costs millions to maintain a safe and healthy lifestyle when having this disability. It now costs 3.9 million in a lifetime for someone with autism to live a well enough lifestyle.

Now after watching the above video, I hope you are able to see a different perspective of autism. We face autism like it’s an ugly monster slipping between our loved ones minds. But just because those with autism are unresponsive to our normal ways of life doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of greatness. Never do we call autism a gift but inside a hassle, a disorder, or a disability. What if it is another way of birthing creativity? What if these people are genius’ way beyond our normal complexities? What should be done is to give those with this gift a way to teach us the things they may understand that we may not. When you see someone with autism create an open mind. At the end of the day their minds may be hardwired differently than ours but they we are all equals.

Written by: Yesenia Torres