World Autism Awareness Day

Today is April 2, 2012, World Autism Awareness Day.  Today is the day that we ask everyone to "Light It Up Blue".  Today is the day we try to be sure that everyone knows that we are facing a global epidemic.  Today is when we try to make people understand.

Over the last couple of days, I have been working very hard to create a video to post on YouTube and then onto my favorite Facebook pages.  I asked people to send in pictures of their children who are affected by autism.  I ask them to provide their name, age, diagnosis, and to answer a very important question:  "I wish that people could ....", and these people responded in numbers that I could never have imagined.  In just 24 hours, I had over 50 pictures, and I had to ask people to stop sending them.  However, I continued to receive pictures until shortly before posting the final video.  All together I had 68 pictures, and I was only able to use 40 in this project (time constraints).

I had never done anything like this before, but I learned as I went.  I now know a few tricks so that when I do this again, I will be a little more prepared and shouldn't experience some of the frustrations that I had this time around.  The video isn't perfect, but it has been well received.  And I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Please just remember that the rates of Autism diagnoses are not going down, but increasing rapidly.  We are faced with an epidemic that has been felt all over the globe.  We still don't know the cause(s) of Autism for most individuals and, until we do, those numbers are going to continue to rise.  Please watch your children for the warning signs and learn as much as you can.  We can help these children.  And we can help the families who see Autism every single day.