Autism Awareness, Acceptance, & Appreciation

by Nadine Briggs

Every April, a spotlight is focused on individuals on the Autism spectrum. The official title of the effort is Autism Awareness month.

Awareness? Certainly, we’re in for increased awareness. The point of spotlighting Autism in April is to help educate people on what Autism is and what it isn’t. We think that maybe the term “awareness” doesn’t go quite far enough.

Is acceptance a better word? Well, it is always my hope that people with Autism or any type of neurodiversity would be accepted but we know that, sadly, that’s not always the case. If everyone took the time to get to know the kids that I get to hang out with each week, I think they would absolutely accept them. We have an incredible group of kids who are a blast to be around. I do like Acceptance better than Awareness as focus word for April.

But I’d like to take advantage of this platform to nominate a different “A” word to focus on Autism. How about Autism Appreciation Month? There’s a lot of Awesome (another great “A” word) in all of the folks we know with Autism, so what if the focus was on appreciating all of that Awesomeness? Appreciation certainly includes and encompasses Awareness and Acceptance.

This month, we’re going to spotlight and appreciate some of the young people we know who are on the spectrum by highlighting their talents and general awesomeness. First up, meet Yung Money Mesc (AKA Sean) who is an up-and-coming rapper. He was kind enough to “clean up” a rap he wrote about being on the spectrum for our family-friendly audience. Check him out on SoundCloud and other social media (Links in video. Please be aware that some of the other material by Yung Money Mesc contains explicit lyrics.)