Understanding Autism - Awareness of Our Children

Imagine that you are walking down the street and you see a frustrated single mother holding her child's hand, looking around in embarrassment as her child screams loudly in his or her attempts to express his or her self. That mother is aware of your stares and, in some cases, dirty looks. However, with a deep sigh and a silent pray to a God she is most likely losing faith in, she continues to hold her child close and wait patiently for the outburst to end.

We quickly walk by, thinking of the audacity of the child and the lack of discipline the mother has instilled in him or her. We flow past, confident in our superiority that we could do a better job; that our child would never behave in such a way.

We walk past in ignorance of the truth. We continue on our self-possessed path of righteousness in our unawareness that this mother is dealing with a special needs child. That the God she is losing faith is placed that child in her loving arms because we, on our high horses, do not contain the strength of will and the power of perseverance to raise a child such as this.

The problem of the child has a name -- Autism. The latest advanced survey taken shows that in the 1990's, the population increased by 13%. The total percentage of diagnosed autism cases during the same period was 150%.

What does this mean? Quite simply, Autism is a growing problem. It is growing faster than the population of the world. During the time of that survey, 1 in 166 births resulted in an autistic child.

In the last decade there were approximately 41,120,520 (Forty One Million, One Hundred Twenty Thousand, Five Hundred Twenty) births. By these figures, that means there were 274,137 (Two Hundred Seventy Four Thousand, One Hundred Thirty Seven) diagnosed cases of Autism.

This is why we must all do our part to increase awareness. The public needs to know that autism is now affecting 1 in 150 individuals and if they do not already know someone with autism, they soon will. Based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and other governmental agencies, autism is growing at a startling rate of 10-17 percent per year.