April is World Autism Awareness Month and it serves as a platform to advocate for better support and services for individuals living with Autism.
Vicky Oette from the Johannesburg-based Sisu Hub Autism Centre says while the level of awareness and acceptance of autistic people in the country is growing, there is still a long way to go in changing people’s views about this.
The centre offers age-appropriate tutoring for non-verbal, minimally verbal and unreliably speaking autistic individuals. Oette says non-verbal autistic individuals are still struggling with being misunderstood.
” It is important to remember that autism is a spectrum disability and that means some autistic people are able to communicate using verbal speech but not all autistic people are able to. Autistic people will present with different characteristics. The individuals that we work with do not use verbal speech to communicate instead they use something called spelling to communicate in order to communicate their words, their thoughts and ideas to us.”
“Saving My Sons – a Journey with Autism” also speaks about the challenges faced by those diagnosed with the disorder:
