Opinion: From Autism Awareness to Autism Acceptance
With this month being National Autism Awareness Month, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and more autism acceptance organizations are pushing towards celebrating the acceptance of autistic people this year, rather than simply being aware of their existence.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “Awareness is knowing something exists and understanding a situation or subject based on facts or experiences.” Acceptance, however, is the act of agreeing to a person’s belonging in a group as an equal.
People should recognize the significance between autism awareness and autism acceptance because being aware focuses on knowing the symptoms of autism rather than calling people to action.
In an article posted by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, one woman wrote that awareness seeks to highlight and emphasize the differences between those who are autistic and those who are not. She said that acceptance looks at the commonalities between autistic people and non-autistic people and celebrates the strengths they have to empower and encourage diversity.
Accepting autistic people means accepting the gifts they contribute to the community and accepting them for who they are as people, rather than defining them based on their condition.
Paula Dubin Westby, organizer of the first Actual Autism Acceptance celebrations, said that most autism awareness campaigns give the wrong message about autistic people. She said that the autistic condition is highlighted in most of these campaigns as something exclusively bad with the ultimate goal of eliminating autism.
Unlike Autism Awareness Month, Westby wrote on her blog that Autism Acceptance Month focuses on accepting autistic people’s communication differences, their different ways of seeing the world, their IQ levels and more symptoms that make a person autistic.
Autism Speaks, an organization that provides solutions and acceptance for people with autism, said autism refers to a range of unique strengths and differences characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication caused by different combinations of genetic and environmental influences.
Acceptance does not only mean accepting the ways autistic individuals do things, but also initiates action that promotes inclusiveness for them in everyday life.
Westby said ways people can show acceptance towards autistic people is making adjustments that allow them to easily access places and events and respecting how they think and working with how they see the world.
By accepting these individuals for who they are and doing what we can do to include them, others must realize that it is their differences that communicate and empower love for neurodiversity and diversity in general.
John Elder Robison, author of “My Life with Asperger’s,” wrote in a Psychology Today article that neurodiversity is believing that people with these differences do not need to be cured but helped and accommodated, instead. Being autistic himself, Robinson said he realized the importance of reminding others of neurological equity and equality without altering the essence of the person.
Accepting autistic people is not conforming them to fit into society, but it is embracing the qualities that autistic people have. It is another thing to recognize the differences between them than to actually act upon showing these people we care about them.
Autism acceptance starts with making a conscious effort in letting autistic individuals know that we as a nation are not only aware that they exist, but also want to celebrate their strengths, who they are and what they contribute to society by loving them, despite everyone’s personal differences.