Autism

So I'm fairly certain everyone has come in contact or known someone close to them with autism. It has been increasing in children over the past decade, or so it seems. Sometimes I think we are just advancing our knowledge on what autism really is and what we didn't know how to diagnose before we are finding the truth in it now. I wanted to post about this because of some amazing photo stories I found on CNN.com contributed by Time magazine that brought me to tears, and yes I'm totally aware that I cry for just about anything, ha. But I'm sure once you see these photos and the descriptions you will do the same.

When I was 13/14 I did a lot of baby sitting around the neighborhood. One neighbor had a child with autism who was extremely high functioning, to me (not having an understanding of what autism really was) he just had a few weird quirks that most children didn't. The neighbor on the other side had a child who was severely mentally retarded. For me, when I think back on it, he was such a learning experience and sometimes I think both these boys lead me into what I'm doing with my life now. The child with MR was very difficult to take care of and sometimes at such a young age I'd say it was a bit traumatizing. I remember having to put him to bed and locking him in his room, sounds terrible right? But the parents had to, otherwise he would wonder out of his room at night and they might never know. Anyway back to these stories from CNN!

The first is about a child named Daniel, he lives in Austin, TX with a caregiver who is devoted to his every need. She ran a daycare before taking Daniel into her home full time, now her ever action revolves around Daniel's autism. Read the story here.

The second story is about the Dragonfly camp for children with autism. See the photos here. Everything they do is to enhance the child's confidence and specialized to deal with their autism. They still completed activities most children would in a normal camp, it might be a bit slower, but no one gives up on them. I would love to go to this camp and volunteer as a counselor. The photo above is part of the series and made me cry, the young girl in the wheelchair had to leave the camp the second day and the boy beside her was trying to comfort her. UGH! again the tears! It is amazing that compassion and being able to relate to another persons emotions does not stop with something like autism. I also really loved this photo,

autistic children have lower muscle tone than most children, so they can't do strenuous work like most and require frequent breaks. Here the child just decided to plop down and rest on top of his counselor. I can only imagine how amazing the counselors are, they must have so much patience, compassion and a real drive to work with these children everyday.