The first step to autism inclusion is autism awareness, understanding, and acceptance.
What is autism and how might it affect parishioners and those who we are trying to reach out to and welcome into our parishes?
The classic analogy is that autism is like having a different operating system. Some brains are like PC’s running Windows and some are like Mac’s running OS-whatever-the-latest-is.
Another way this analogy works, is that every user will utilize a PC or a Mac differently and similarly, if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.
We need to approach each person as an individual and not a label.
The folks at Amazing Things Happen have done a pretty great job at introducing autism in a video designed for kids, but that even adults can utilize to start getting a basic understanding of autism.
See the video for yourself:
What did you learn from the video and what questions does it leave you with? What would you add or change in this video?