Going Beyond Autism Awareness

As I was writing the Editor’s note, and was writing about April being Autism Awareness Month, I could not help but wonder what must be happening to the families when they hear for the first time about their child being autistic? Because autism is still shrouded in mystery. And when a parent has been told that his /her child is having autism, he is surely going to be baffled, isolated, cheated and much , much more.

It is said that India is a home to 70 million disabled people, a figure equivalent to the entire population of U.K. but do we have any services commensurate to them? A big no. When any diagnosis is made, you will find the parent is left to himself to nurse his wounds.

Why ? Why can’t we have any trained personnel to effectively explain what the condition is? I have heard parents of children with IQ of 50 saying one day their child will come up to 85-90 point as if they are marks to be scored in the next unit test. The clinics don’t even offer simple explanations to the parents as what an I. Q. test is. If this is the case with basics like I.Q. then one can imagine there must be hardly any time to explain in layman’s language what is Autism, it’s causes, treatments, various therapies, special education, support groups etc. etc. So while the parent grapples with the situation, the intervention time will be fast running out.

So many times I receive phone calls from distressed parents of children with autism to find appropriate schools. Many times the diagnosing professionals are not aware of educational facilities for them. Professionals feel their duty stops at diagnosing the condition and that is that. They do not know the logistics of the next step.

I have observed that Information which is the key to empowerment is very difficult to find commodity for the parents. Therefore, I urge all the readers to share any bit of information with us for future use of parents. Kindly let us know of a new school that has come up or any residential school that has been built, any new support group which you have started.