Apple Celebrates Autism Acceptance Month With Two New Videos

As someone who also has Autism, I fully support Apple with showcasing this young man's story.

You might think that I have more to say (and I do), but I don't think most would read it so I'll just end it here.

My brother has autism and is nonverbal. Thanks to the iPad, he can communicate at a level I feared wasn't possible. From the bottom my heart, thank you Apple.

As a parent of an autistic child, I am so proud of Apple and the tech community for caring to give voice to those that need help.

Very touching. So glad he was born in a time that this is possible.

The autism rate over the last few years has spiked drastically. I'm still convinced the cause is something that's being kept from the public.

Would be nice to see apple spend some money on research towards those answers.

As one on the spectrum at the high functioning end, I believe one of the big reasons is society has, in the last 35 years, become significantly more demanding of having a high social IQ and emotional IQ to be "normal".

Low functioning autistics, like Dillan, have always been obviously autistic and easily diagnosed. And it's great to see tools like the iPad help them become more functioning.

But it's higher up the spectrum that all the new diagnose is occurring. People who function reasonably okay and you generally don't pick until you talk to them a little or longer.

Back in the '70s and earlier, it didn't matter if you were not able to understand feelings, or be a social butterfly, because the dominant "species" (men) were not anyway. Before the '80s, you'd never see a man cry, for example.

It was much easier for an functioning autistic to disappear into the background and find a niche were they could be happy or at least, not pressured to be someone different.

Ironically, back then, particularly for guys, if you were social and emotional, you were the one with a "disorder".

But now, we expect everyone to be in touch with their feelings and social masters. I think that's why my own diagnosis didn't come til I was 45 (7 years ago).

As I got older and the world changed, I think I found it harder and harder to conform to what was expected of a "normal" person.

I'm not saying this change in the world is a bad thing either. I think it is a very good thing. It has been a significant reason for the improved relations and understanding between men and women.

But at the moment, it's a bit out of balance because we are expecting *everybody* to fit this new "normal" and when they don't, we say something is wrong with them, and often they get diagnosed autistic.

We need to get to a point where we see functioning autistic people as normal - but in a different way.

As someone who also has Autism, I fully support Apple with showcasing this young man's story.

You might think that I have more to say (and I do), but I don't think most would read it so I'll just end it here.

Please, go ahead and share your story.

Feel free. We have a number of autistic members here.

Somewhat unrelated, I can be added to the list of people with a "disability."

I have cerebral palsy, so life for me is somewhat different from most 16 year olds. I use Apple products every day to get around this, so I support Apple with this as well as all their other accessibility-related moves.

The autism rate over the last few years has spiked drastically. I'm still convinced the cause is something that's being kept from the public.

Would be nice to see apple spend some money on research towards those answers.

Better awareness and diagnosis perhaps?

I'm going to express what I expect is a very unpopular opinion. I believe there are fad diseases that are over diagnosed and that some people try to include themselves (or their loved ones) in under an overly broad definition. I think that autism is the latest such "craze". People like Dillon undoubtedly have serious challenges but for every Dillon it seems there are 10 more people on the autism "spectrum" that have only minor challenges in life that could easily be chalked up to us all being different rather than any specific underlying condition. To me it seems that many people having concerns about their child's development today jump to the autism spectrum as an explanation and given the lack of a hard diagnosis it can be a dubious claim. The spike in cases could be a combination of increased awareness leading to increased diagnosis but also a large increase in parents (incorrectly) using it as an explanation for whatever other concern they have. We seem to have a spike in something like this for every generation, prior to autism it seems it was food allergies, prior to that it was ADHD, prior to that it was asthma, repeat ad-nausium. For every one of those conditions there are people legitimately suffering from the effects but I'd wager a significant number - for some even a majority - are not impairing and/or correct diagnosis. Perhaps I'm an idiot who hasn't been informed of the facts or maybe time will prove me wrong but I highly suspect this "epidemic" is overblown.

As a parent of an autistic girl, I can assure you it's not a parent that makes a diagnosis. It's a trained specialist.
The autistic spectrum is after all a spectrum. There are those who are mildly affected, and those who are more severely autistic. But I don't think it's trendy.

So how does iPad actually helps? How is this different to writing or typing on a typewriter. I also form words from letters, and sentences from words while typing or speaking.

Look layers deeper. There is software therapists and parents use to help get the kids to that point. Look beyond the result and think how the person got there. Therapists and parents use specific software to help build these skills. This has been going on for several years.

Dang I cried, faith in humanity restored.