Best of Week

Every Tuesday and Thursday I find myself saying comforting words to this tuba player in band. He marches by me for part of the show, and I constantly see him frustrated and annoyed. I have always told teachers and such to help him because he doesn't remember his sets, and there is nothing more I can do. I never really understood why he was like this though, until one day I asked my teacher if he was ok. My teacher replied, "Yes, he just has autism."
This week we watched a video and had a discussion about Temple Grandin, and how she was able to use autism as a means to help her. As a result of her autism, she is able to visualize and see things in ways the normal brain cannot, and she ended up inventing and making huge strides in the caddle industry.
After hearing how successful Temple Grandin was, it really opened my eyes to how I view people with autism. It really made me think about how fortunate people with autism actually are, and how society perceives people with autism to be the exact opposite. It also made me realize that people with autism are actually more intelligent than "normal" people, but yet most people don't see them as that.
This connects to my own knowledge and beliefs because before I felt sorry for people with autism, but now I admire people with autism. They have abilities I could only dream of having. The ability to see and envision so many wonderful things. They have the ability to invent, to create, to change the way we live.
Now that I know how intelligent and wonderful people with autism's brains really are, I see myself using that knowledge in a number of ways. First, when anyone ever says anything implying that people with autism are not very intelligent, I will explain to them that in fact their brains are more intelligent than ours, jsut in a different way! Second, I want to tell the people I know with autism that they have a gift that they should use! I want to encourage people with autism to not get discouraged by our society, but instead to prove our society wrong.
What touched me the most is that 90% of the things we use today were invented by people with autism. It is the people with autism that are the geniuses, the inventors, and the people who make our lives easier.People should be praising, embracing, and treating people with autism with more dignity and respect, and I hope one day our society will.