I read about things related to autism on a daily basis. I am a part of multiple communities and do lots of my own personal research. I listen when I talk to others and I make informed decisions about therapies, treatments and the way in which we spend our money on these things.
It’s interesting what I read sometimes. Some people say that autism is strictly a psychological issue, while others talk about the medical side of autism.
People who talk about various improvements that their child has made as the result of different therapies, medical interventions, ABA, OT, Speech therapy, neurofeedback, CBD with fecal transplants and stems cells being the latest thing that is being studied.
There are also some people who choose to simply accept the autism diagnosis and do nothing.
People also talk about inclusion and exclusion in various way.
So who is right and who is wrong?
Well, it’s not that simple.
Autism is very complex and if you choose to intervene with any kind of therapy, it will look different for every person.
I believe that everyone should do their own research and then find professionals that they trust.
For us, the medical side has become huge in the last couple of years. Honestly, prior to this, I had little awareness of it. It is not mainstream in Canada and professionals who are involved in this as part of their practice, usually don’t advertise it as some of the treatments are not widely accepted by the medical community.
There are many medical interventions that can be done to make a person’s life easier. I am not going to talk about all of them today, but there are lots of things that will ease physically symptoms of autism, thus optimizing more learning when a person is physically feeling better and stronger.
Even school boards are divided on how to handle kids with autism. If you look at a public board versus a private board, you will see differences. One promotes inclusion, while the other exclusion. Inclusion is very important as we are all part of a bigger community where all people should be included.
Parents and people in the autism community are sometimes divided on certain aspects.
In my opinion, I don’t need a day for the community to celebrate autism. Every day in our house is autism day. I don’t need to celebrate it as much as bring an awareness to how certain things affect my child.
In our house, we are pro-active so we do work on medically healing and other holistic interventions that we have personally seen have made a huge impact on our child’s health and development. Is healing possible? Absolutely, I have seen it first hand.
But I think instead of being divided in the community, we should support each other and each other’s decisions on what we choose to do for our child. We should also be open and caring and share information with each other. To support the person and help the person with autism grow should be our top priority.
I am pretty low-key so I don’t need to have a rally, I just need to keep moving forward and help my child to succeed and grow. So to answer the question, I don’t choose sides, I choose my child because he is what matters the most!
Shelly Wedge 