Special Mom’s blog

Special needs family and trying to be positive as we live through our daily struggles!❤️

Autism Awareness Day

April 2nd is Autism Awareness Day and April is Autism Awareness Month. Over the years there has been a lot of awareness about autism but I just want to point out certain things.

No two autistic people are the same. If you have seen one autistic person, you have seen one person. The behaviors, the ability, the interaction all are different.

Lot of autistic people have other co morbid issues. Co morbid issues means sensory processing disorder, seizures, anxiety, OCD, autoimmune conditions. I limit myself to my son’s issues but there may be more.

Every individual learns in his own way and at his own pace. The excellent part is my son who will be turning 25 is still learning.

Autism is not a childhood issue, children grow into adults and become part of community. Community participation is now a big part of my son’s life. I thank all the institutions that help me in integrating my son.

Kudos to all the parents who work very hard to help their child and hugs to all the siblings who are their best friends.

ganga1996

April 2, 2022

April

autism, family, life, specialneeds

10 responses to “Autism Awareness Day”

Janice Reid

April 2, 2022 at 1:01 pm

Kudos to you and your family too. I see your son is surrounded by a wonderful patient family.

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1. ganga1996
  
  April 2, 2022 at 1:32 pm
  
  Thank you.❤️🙏
  
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Anonymous

April 2, 2022 at 7:29 pm

Hugs to you and your family for being so strong and handling it with such grace.

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1. ganga1996
  
  April 2, 2022 at 8:12 pm
  
  Thank you!
  
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Kimerle Anne Viccaro

April 3, 2022 at 6:13 pm

I
Hi Uma, I have seen firsthand since we are neighbors the love and care you, Lakshmi, and Mahesh show to Ani everyday. You guys are so patient and kind and you cook with Ani and do puzzles and take him to the rec center and trails to get his exercise. I know he loves you very much as much as you love him. 🙂

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ganga1996

April 3, 2022 at 6:36 pm

❤️🙏 Thank you!

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fgsjr2015

April 4, 2022 at 12:29 am

Though it may be clinically labelled as some other disorder, I have a self-diagnosed condition involving Autism Spectrum Disorder, ACE trauma and high sensitivity — which I freely refer to as a perfect storm of train wrecks. (Albeit I’ve found ASD has some symptoms similar to those of high sensitivity.) It’s one with which I greatly struggle(d) while unaware, until I was a half-century old, that its component dysfunctions had formal names. Thus, it would be helpful (at least for me) to have books written about such or similar tumultuous combinations of cerebrally-based conditions.

I read a book about highly sensitive men that totally fails to even mention the real potential for additional challenges created by high sensitivity combining with adverse childhood experience trauma and/or an autism spectrum disorder. Similarly, The Autistic Brain completely excludes any mention of ASD coexisting with high sensitivity and/or ACE trauma, let alone the possible complications thus additional suffering created by such coexistence. And the book Childhood Disrupted, however informative, doesn’t even hint at the potential for having to suffer ACE trauma alongside ASD and/or high sensitivity.

I therefore don’t know whether my additional, coexisting conditions will render the information and/or assigned exercises from each of the three books useless, or close to it, in my efforts to live much less miserably. While many/most people in my shoes would work with the books nonetheless, I cannot; I simply need to know if I’m wasting my time and, most importantly, mental efforts.

P.S. Such a book, or books, could also include the concept of high school curriculum that teaches the science of the basics of young children’s developing brains and therefore healthy/unhealthy methods of parental/guardian rearing of children who are autistic and/or ACE-traumatized and/or highly sensitive.

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1. ganga1996
  
  April 4, 2022 at 12:42 am
  
  ASD is given to a wide range and everything regarding it sad to say is at infancy. No one can claim to know it all. Everyone and every family experience is different. That is the sad part.
  
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  1. fgsjr2015
    
    April 4, 2022 at 1:41 am
    
    True, but there can still be education. … I feel that not only should all school teachers receive mandatory Autism Spectrum Disorder training, but that there should further be an inclusion in standard high school curriculum of child-development science that would also teach students about the often-debilitating ASD (without being overly complicated, of course). If nothing else, the curriculum would offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally/mentally compatible with the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.
    
    It would explain to students how, among other aspects of the condition, people with ASD (including those with higher functioning autism) are often deemed willfully ‘difficult’ and socially incongruent, when in fact such behavior is really not a choice. And how “camouflaging” (or “masking”), a term used to describe ASD people pretending to naturally fit in, causes their already high anxiety and depression levels to further increase. …
    
    As a ‘difficult’ boy with autism spectrum disorder, ACEs and high sensitivity (thus not always easy to deal with), the first and most formidably abusive authority figure with whom I was terrifyingly trapped was my Grade 2 teacher (Mrs. Carol), in the early 1970s.
    
    Although I can’t recall her abuse in its entirety, I’ll nevertheless always remember how she had the immoral audacity — and especially the unethical confidence in avoiding any professional repercussions — to blatantly readily aim and fire her knee towards my groin, as I was backed up against the school hall wall.
    
    Fortunately, though, she missed her mark, instead hitting the top of my left leg. Though there were other terrible teachers, for me she was uniquely traumatizing, especially when she wore her dark sunglasses when dealing with me. … I didn’t tell anyone about my ordeal with her. Rather than consciously feel victimized, I felt some misplaced shame.
    
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  2. ganga1996
    
    April 4, 2022 at 2:12 am
    
    Yes a lot needs to be done. I agree.
    
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