What an insightful and well written article. I applaud you! As a pediatrician I too have felt frustrated with the limited information we have to provide parents and children once they receive a diagnosis of Autism. Interestingly, I have noticed that many of my patients with Autism are gifted with almost "special" abilities. For some it is art, for others music for others it is academics. I had 2 patients that went on to study aerospace engineering and amazed me with their knowledge in the office. I have always felt that as a society we should expose children with autism to a vast array of things and concepts to see what resonates with them and then nurture that, instead of forcing them to conform to "how we think children should be". It would be interesting to create a longitudinal study that follows children after a diagnosis over a lifetime to see what helped them develop their skills (parenting styles, conventional schooling and therapies, unconventional..) I feel like with the diagnosis of Autism there is so much we don't know and so much we can learn from them too. Its like untapping parts of the brain we never knew existed. I wish you luck on your advocacy efforts and agree 100%!
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