Last week on her blog, Carrie Cariello posted a wonderful essay entitled “I Know What Causes Autism.” Here’s an excerpt:
You can see my dilemma. If I start running around declaring autism an epidemic and screeching about how we need to find out where it’s coming from and who started it and how to cure it, well, that sort of contradicts the whole message of acceptance and tolerance and open-mindedness.
This fragile glass house we’ve been working so hard to build over the past decade will explode into a thousand tiny pieces.
But on the other hand, it sort of is an epidemic. Other families are going to have babies and maybe they would like to have some idea of how to prevent this tricky spectrum disorder from striking. My own children will have their children, and if autism is indeed caused by automotive exhaust, it would be good to know so we could all buy electric cars.
At the same time, I don’t want to focus so much on the what and when and where and how that I forget about the who.
Because I don’t care where it came from.
But I am kind of curious.
It doesn’t matter to me why Jack has autism.
But it might be good information to have.
There’s nothing wrong with him.
Maybe there’s a little something wrong with him because he just spent the last forty-five minutes talking about all the different kinds of gum that Wal-Mart sells.
Please read the rest of this essay on Carrie Cariello’s blog “Exploring The Colorful World Of Autism” — and pass it along.
(Back Pat: Lynn Hurdle)