Gitl comes out to classmates via Public Service Announcement

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Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
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Location: Long Island, New York

05 Apr 2017, 12:09 am

The Girl in This Jarring Autism PSA Used the Ad to Reveal Her Own Autism to Classmates A plea for more patience

Quote:
A deliberately grating new PSA is trying to help people better understand what it’s like to be autistic, by illustrating the sensory overload that a 12-year-old girl with the developmental disability experiences regularly.

As Holly—a real schoolgirl living with autism in the U.K.—gets on the bus in the morning, a series of interactions that might seem innocuous to a person without autism begin to pile up. She struggles to process them quickly, and others lose patience.

Before long, she’s being haunted by an army of ghosts barking questions, while the stimuli begin to pour in, overwhelming her, and setting her on a path toward a meltdown.

It also has some practical utility for Holly herself, who shared the film with her school during an assembly on World Autism Awareness Day this past Sunday. This was “to tell friends and classmates about her autism for the very first time,” as the NAS puts it, and help the people in her immediate circle better grasp their part in her experiences, and the small changes in their behavior that might help her better integrate socially.


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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman