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.

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

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.

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.

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?