Everybody is guilty...Everybody is guilty of at least one time in their lives placing a stigma onto something they felt wasn’t “normal.” This something could be a new country you’ve visited, or a new hobby you’ve tried out. These stigmas are harmless, because hobbies and countries are not humans. But what about when we place stigmas on to people? This is when stigmas become deadly. In today’s society, it seems we naturally speak ill against things that are foreign and “out of place” among us, but we fail to realize that these people we place these stigmas on to are hurting…badly. In my article, I will mainly be focusing on the two worst stigmas that seem to haunt people who have Autism.
The inspiration behind me writing this article is because God has blessed me with the sweetest, smartest, kindest nephew. His name is Irie, and he has Autism. I have seen many stigmas placed on my nephew when he was just a baby, and my nephew is about to be just eight years old. I fear that his life has already been pushed onto a road of great struggle of earning acceptance, and a great struggle of harsh pre-judgment on his character before getting to know him. I want to educate my readers on these stigmas, so you guys can both be aware and become supportive of the Autistic community.
Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are both the general terms fused to describe a group of complex disorders of brain development. Autism is characterized (in varying degrees) by symptoms that express difficulty in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors.” Even though people who have Autism may have these difficulties, studies have shown that some people with Autism do indeed excel in visual skills, music, math and art. Much stigma of Autism arises from people with Autism having difficulty with social interaction. Which brings me to the first stigma placed on Autism: “Animal Label.”
The reason why I labeled the first stigma of Autism as, Animal Label, is because people with Autism sometimes can have erratic moments of behaviors. Due to this moments of erratic behavior, a lot of people seem to associate the word beastly to people with Autism. I know this is the case, because of being with my nephew, I’ve witnessed the disgusted looks people give him like as if they’re seeing a wild animal. People with Autism are not wild animals! The reason for their moments of erratic behaviors deals with being overwhelmed by too much sensory information. Here is an example: Jimmy is a bright boy with a lot of energy for learning. But he has a classmate who cries for hours each day. The sound and the emotional weight of that crying pushes Jimmy over the edge and makes it very difficult for him to concentrate and learn. People with Autism cannot handle the overstimulation of sensory, which is why they may act out with erratic behavior. The second stigma placed on Autism is: “Control your Child.”
The reason why I’ve labeled the second stigma of Autism as, Control Your Child, is because one of the characteristics of Autism is their repetitive behavior. Because of this repetitive behavior, I have been approached by numerous people who have questioned me on my nephew’s behavior and have even told me that I should take him to behavior therapy to control him. The reason why people with Autism have repetitive behaviors is because of their lack of verbal and nonverbal communication. Because people with Autism have a hard time verbalizing what they are feeling, they end up doing repetitious movements that to them are helping them to express that emotion they have tied to the repetitious act they keep doing.
Please stop stigmatizing people with Autism. We are stigmatizing human beings who are sensitive beings with feelings. We should never judge something because it is different from us. God loves every single one of us. God made us to be different from each other. And before we turn our backs and stigmatize people with disorders, remember what Jesus said and did for the blind man. Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him, and healed him. So remember: Help each other and love each other and understand each other. Don’t stigmatize. Thank you.
