Over my city, I've been seeing more and more billboards with this same message. For some reason, when I first saw it I didn't even really acknowledge it, but the more I looked at it, the more angry it made me. Angry, why angry? Well, lets just say the generalization of autism is more harming than good. Autism is more than eye contactThere is so much more to a child than eye contact just like autism is much more, or less, than avoiding eye contact. Overall I feel that it sends the message that autistic children aren't social. Though they might not be obviously social, in their own ways they try to interact with others. Autism impairs the ability to connect, and appropriately interact. It doesn't make it impossible. They aren't "withdrawn". People with autism are in their own world of overwhelming sights, sounds, smells and tastes which can make it difficult for others to break that barrier. Avoiding eye contact with someone is only natural when they aren't in that world. It isn't a sure-tell signMy son as a child never avoided eye contact. Ever. He'd smile and giggle. His eyes were so big, and curious like a little kitten. Hilo absorbed everything around him. I always knew the eye contact bit as a sign of autism, watched for it closely and quickly disregarded his behavior as his own quirks. It wasn't until he started getting older that things were starting to slow down, and speech never developing, that I began to worry about a learning disability. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected an autism diagnosis from his preschool. I was blindsided. He had eye contact! But that isn't always the case with autism being a spectrum. It ranges! Some children with autism avoid eye contact, some don't. Just like some of them are extremely gifted students, some are average, and some suffer greatly academically. So, really, parents should educate themselves on MANY signs of autism lest children go undiagnosed and go without the therapies they need. What to look for as a parentBabies/Toddlers
Young Children
Teenagers/AdultHood
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AuthorGabrielle Rae is a special needs, stay at home mommy of two boys. She enjoys reading and writing novels in her spare time. @onbothfrontsArchives
August 2018
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