I can't believe it. It keeps happening. Maybe I am too sensitive to the lack of public knowledge and information being presented to the public. I watched Comedy Centrals night of too many stars. It was a benefit show for autism. Big named stars came out for this event. Some of my favorite comedians. It was nice to see this big show of support by all these people, but I felt like the information presented was so superficial. It was not informative, and all they mentioned about any professional role were teachers and a one word slip - 'therapist.' Bah! AOTA needs to make its own benefit with stars, promoting itself!!
At least there was a lot of money raised in the name autism. Hopefully, some of it goes towards scientific research. I'm not really sure why money needs to be raised to teach teachers how to teach kids with autism. Apparently, they didn't take classes similar to mine. Maybe OTs should take on that role. Take an active role in the classroom, "push in" and provide some support for the teachers. I felt a little disappointed with this. I guess this is the first step in bringing autism to the forefront of public consciousness. Wouldn't it be nice if we jumped on the ship and told people that we provide a part of the service of early intervention. I want to stress that I don't make the assumption that OT is the only profession that does early intervention. It is a team process and should be a team process, that includes the student, the parent, the teacher, the OT, the Speech language Pathologist, psychologist, social worker, and nurse. Each child is different and has different needs.
My next problem with this Comedy Central Show was they had some clips, like I mentioned above, that showed the emotional upheaval and the issues that face people who experience this disorder. It was effective. I wrote some quotes directly from these clips down as soon as I heard them. I'm not sure many people would catch what was said because of the distressing nature of the images presented, but if you listened you would have caught this....
"who is going to help my child?" and " I don't think the health system is set up right"
WHOA! WHAT?! Maybe the system isn't set up right, but if these parents are on a TV show about their child don't you think that they would have googled "ways to help kids with autism"?
After typing this I thought, maybe I should try this. Google Search
Would that help you? I think this is an issue that we as a profession need to address.
Be Well! And tell someone about AUTISM!
Tim Dionne
University At Buffalo
BS/MS OT class of 2010
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