Miriam Itzkowitz Year 10

Autism

There are many great charities for autism, but the reason I chose Aspect is because they helped me. In Year 8, I went on a camp for children who have siblings on the Spectrum. This camp allowed me to bond with many people who are in a similar position, as well as learning about my brother’s condition. I like how Aspect takes everyone into account. Many people don’t think that siblings need the support because they’re not the ones “suffering” or have to pay the medical bills, but in a sense, a lot of the time we feel forgotten. Sometimes my parents are late in picking me up from school because they have to take my brother to a psychologist appointment, or they can’t go through my homework with me because my brother is having an anxiety attack. Aspect also provides counselling and assistance with diagnoses and general support for people on the Spectrum and their families. Being around people who understood me through an institution that recognised my struggle as well as my family’s, made me want to donate to them.

I was curious as to why autism is portrayed as such a bad thing, seeing as my brother is extremely high functioning and intelligent. While I acknowledge there are definitely difficulties and some obstacles, for the most part my family functions just like any other family. I realised that the main issue is the media and people in power. Donald Trump, before his political career, sent out a series of tweets, claiming that vaccinations cause autism. And while these are ‘just words’, people listened and took action. Even though these are ‘just words’, as President of the United States, his saying them this endangers people. This is dangerous for 3 reasons.

1. People won’t vaccinate their children, and if there is no herd immunity around, there is a high chance of their child contracting a deadly disease;
2. It tells people on the Spectrum that they’re worthless because an “epidemic” (in Trump’s words) of a non-life-threatening condition is worse than a potentially fatal illness, which can lower their self-esteem, or even lead to bullying at school;
3. People try to cure autism. There is no known cure (not that it really needs a cure), but that hasn’t stopped people in America from attempting to eradicate it from their children with dangerous cures such as bleach enemas, which obviously has detrimental effects.

Finding out about the use of enemas and knowing that famous people were saying these things upset me, because I knew that this couldn’t ever benefit anyone, so I wanted to rectify the falsifications and provide proper information.

The other issue in the media is with TV shows like The Good Doctor (Channel 7) and Atypical (Netflix). While these shows attempt to ‘normalise’ autism, they don’t acknowledge that everyone is different and they portray the main protagonists in an extremely robotic manor. This is not what I have found. I’ve been fortunate enough to know many people on the Spectrum from all different walks of life, and each one is quite different and has their own personality. My brother is obsessed with outer space and can tell you basically everything about it, providing you with his own theories as well. That being said, there are certain similarities between people on the Spectrum, which the Israel Defence Force actually utilises in a special unit called Ro’im Rachot, a special unit for autistic Israelis to analyse aerial and satellite photos.

While it may seem like there is a myriad of trials and tribulations when it comes to the life of someone on the Spectrum, my wish is that this article has provided some insight into the true talents that many people on the Spectrum possess. I hope it has allowed everyone to rethink some of the pre-conceived notions about the condition, which could have been influenced by the media.

Finally, this fundraiser was a great success. The final total was $1,068.95! None of this would have been possible without the help of the madrichim, who tirelessly helped me set everything up on the day and made announcements leading up to the event, my Tutor Group and Year for helping sell and set up and bake, Kyah Laishevsky and Mr Marshall for helping with the lights and sound at the disco, Dr Joffe for advising and assisting throughout the entire planning period, Ms Levin-Kahn for helping run the entire event, and most of all, my brother for being the biggest inspiration to me in organising this event. I definitely would not have been able to run this day without him and minds like his in the universe.

People on the spectrum aren’t disabled. They are abled differently.