Autism and Us |
A few weeks back, I received an e-mail from a young couple requesting a coffee meet-up. I met Jamshed and Sofia (names changed) some days later. They were a young couple in their 30s with a boy aged seven and a girl aged four. After the pleasantries, Sofia requested that I write about autism, as she wanted the world to know how cruel and insensitive it can be. Their daughter, an extremely beautiful child, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and the shock of it was written all over these two young people.
What saddened me even more was the response of their family, friends, and the school the child was going to attend. The feeling of being left high and dry, and the stigmatisation of their daughter even by their loved ones, was what hurt them the most. I spoke to them and shared whatever I knew through reading and some indirect experiences, and I promised to write about it.
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It is an unfortunate fact that by the time a child is diagnosed with autism, society in general, and families and schools in particular, have already passed judgement. Expectations narrow. Parents are made to feel as if it was their fault. Schools begin to prepare not for a student but for a problem child. Parents are handed pamphlets and coldly told that their child is a difficult enterprise, issued warnings but offered no hope. In the majority of cases, institutions do not even attempt to fulfil their own responsibilities, despite charging heavy fees.
This “before and after” event becomes more hurtful because the child is still the same child he or she was before—curious, sensitive, loving, naughty, intense, communicative,........