Here is a commentary I tried to get to NPR, WBUR, and several other of my favorite media outlets. It was not accepted, so I am posting it here because I like it. I am all about bridging the divide among parents in the autism community, which does so much harm to an already challenging life.
–Susan<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe that vaccines caused my son\u2019s autism. Actually it is the furthest thing from my mind these days. Maybe there was a time when Nat was little \u2013 he\u2019s now 19 \u2013 when I was wringing my hands about how this happened, and why. And wondering what I could have done about it. But that was a long time ago. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know exactly what causes autism. But I do know something about what helps autistic people, my son in particular. I learned, for instance, that Nat uses giddy laughter to let me know that he wants to connect with me. I didn\u2019t know that until he was thirteen. I also learned that Nat may talk a bit like a little boy, but that he understands everything that is said to him \u2013 and around him. I have learned that Nat can do just about anything he is taught, from working at Papa Gino\u2019s to using the telephone, but that it takes a special kind of educational approach for him to succeed.<\/p>\n
With autism\u2019s challenges, it is easy to understand why many parents are driven to blame their hardships on something. I don\u2019t judge them for their vehemence because I understand the innate desire in parents to fight for their children. I have fought in so many ways for Nat: for just the right school program; for the chance to play like other kids; for adult services so that he can work and live semi-independently. But most of all, I have fought to understand him and to have a relationship with him. And that takes learning the best communication approaches and a lot of patience and compassion.<\/p>\n
I fear that all this focus on the evils and causes of autism is actually going to harm autistic people in the long run. Currently all we can see is autism, the “thief that steals children,” when what we need is support services and accommodation for autistics. Autism is not the monster that ruins people\u2019s lives; rather, the monster is a society that focuses on lawsuits and anger, and ignores the needs of autistic people and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is a commentary I tried to get to NPR, WBUR, and several other of my favorite media outlets. It was not accepted, so I am posting it here because I like it. I am all about bridging the divide among parents in the autism community, which does so much harm to an already challenging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-45","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}