rolltide101x said:
It is absolutely a disease..... Millions of people struggle with it everyday. Just because some people are ok with it does not take away from its impact. I am glad that Curl is ok with it though and that is defintely a good way of looking at it :) |
Millions do struggle with it, true, but autism can have advantages as well as disadvantages. Speaking for myself, it grants me a high level of focus and data retention on subjects of great interest to me. I have some social and motor skill impairments, but on the flipside, I was reading at an adult level before I turned 10, and I used to attend classes 5 years above my age level in school.
In my job, (Core enabler and mentor for an autism support network) I know dozens of people on the spectrum, and while each has their own challenges, they have extraordinary gifts as well. I know a girl who could tell you what day of the week it was, what she was doing, and what the weather was like on the 3rd of June 1996. I know a guy who became a published novelist before the age of 18.
Even those who tend to be written off as "low functioning" can be so much more than they appear. One of my colleagues is non-verbal and lacks the ability to speak; as a child he was presumed to be a walking vegetable, yet once he got his hands on one of those keyboards that speaks back what you write, the most incredibly insightful and intelligent words flowed forth.
Yes, there are those whose autism is so severe that it causes them suffering, but in my experience both working with autistic youth and living with it myself, it's more often a matter of being different rather than broken or less than. :)
