It's the Second World Autism Awareness Day. Have there been milestones for you?
Today, April 2, is the Second Annual World Autism Awareness Day, as declared by the United Nations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that autism affects one in 150 children, and CNN/Health has produced a roundup of events, changes and milestones over the past 365 days, summarizing such major issues as:
-- while no cure has yet been found, some progress is being made
-- there is new research
-- some major court decisions have affected the field
They spend time outlining the following areas:
Are autism rates going up?
What are the environmental factors?
And how to afford therapies?
Here's the full story:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/02/autism.update/index.html
Events happen throughout the day. Here's a schedule, with links to press coverage around the world:
http://www.autismspeaks.org/sponsoredevents/world_autism_awareness_day.php
TELL US
Are you dealing with autism in your family? What were your personal milestones over the last year?
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Thanks for this, Diane.
We are very fortunate to have three kids without autism and at the rate the diagnosis is being given, I consider us to be actually lucky.
What this awareness has done for us, however, is to have been very mindful of the signs of autism. We looked out for them at the very beginning for each child so that if one did have autism, we could start intervention immediately.
We also slowed down with our vaccinations also, and skipped some we did not feel necessary. I know this is controversial but after reading so much and weighing both sides of the debate, we felt it was the right thing to do. We have also spoken to parents of autistic kids who also assured us we were doing the right thing. Our pediatrician disagreed but she respects our wishes.
I genuinely believe that autism awareness will do a lot to help kids who have this condition a lot earlier.