In Our Students’ Words, “What I Want You to Know About Autism.”
The month of April goes by a few names. What was once “Autism Awareness Month” has commonly been renamed “Autism Acceptance Month.” At Islands of Brilliance, we call it “Autism Action Month.” And this April, our Digital Academy (DA) students have been incredibly active when it comes to self-reflection, advocacy, and empowerment…especially when it comes to their autism.
Throughout the year, our DA students work through development sprints. They have designed solutions for biker safety and comfort in the winter, improving the dental experience for autistic individuals, a clothing line for Kohl’s Department Stores, and more! At the end of our last sprint, we asked them what challenge they would like to take on for our April sprint. Overwhelmingly they chose Autism Awareness. And so over the course of the past three weeks, they developed a social media campaign as well as a “self-portrait” visualizing the labels they chose for themselves titled, “This is Me.”
We started off the sprint by asking the students what they wanted people to know about autism. They filled a word cloud faster than we’ve ever seen before!
At the end of our sprint students were asked what they wanted people to know, and here are some of their individual responses:
“It is not something to be teased at but to be cared for and be amazed.”
“My brain is wired differently from everyone else’s, and the things I choose are the ones that make me more comfortable.”
“I want people that know that autism can affect how people act socially but we’re not stupid.’
“That we might look like we are different, but we are not. We just learn differently than everyone else does.”
“We are creative, it’s okay to be different, and everyone should learn to not be a bully.”
“We think about our views of situations differently than a person who doesn’t have autism.”
“Autism can help people focus on one thing and obsess about a creative idea which can be turned into a product that can help people.”
“In spite of lacking in certain abilities (like social skills) we Autistic folk have incredible amounts of imagination and can create quality art with various talents.”
“That just because someone is autistic doesn’t mean they’re vulnerable.”
“Autism is not a negative attribute.”
“That we can struggle with our mental health.”
“It is not always a disability.”
The students then crafted the messages they wanted to incorporate into their social media campaign. Together, they came up with these six themes:
Imagine the Possibilities
Autism is a Superpower
Proud to be Autistic
Celebrate Our Differences
Being Different is Actually a Beautiful Thing
We Can See The World Through a Different Lens
Looking at autism as a superpower, we also asked the students what they viewed as a gift of having autism. Again, here are some of their answers in their own words:
“Those with autism tend to focus on details of their passions i.e. drawing, writing, music.”
“Creativity!” (This one appeared four times!)
“I think one gift of having autism is achieving your goals by getting inspiration from the things you love.”
“I think one of my gifts from having autism is that I can easily focus on the things that I want to.”
“Learning to speak up (both for others and myself).”
“One gift of having autism is that we can sometimes notice things about a situation that a person who doesn’t have autism wouldn’t have.”
“It can open a lot of creativity and can enhance the eyes to seeing artistic details on a picture and copy it exactly.”
“Autism allows for a higher quality of creativity, along with attention to certain details that may prove interesting. Also, we tend to be more easy-going at most times.”
“One gift is having a creative mind that never ends.”
“The availability to stim.”
“I have hyper-intelligence.”
We just love seeing how often creativity comes up in their responses! We end each sprint with a group reflection. We look at the things that went well and the things that could have gone better. We discuss how we might approach things differently in the next sprint. And for this specific month, we asked our students to share a few of the things they learned about themselves and their autism.
As Autism Action Month comes to a close, I’ll leave you with a string of our students’ sentiments: We should embrace autism because being unique is awesome. We’re all more alike than different, but where we are different, it’s in a good way. We all have our own, unique superpowers! And for those on the spectrum, autism is a piece of who they are, it doesn’t define them.
