Asperger's awareness in Canada

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Last night the public affairs program Inquiry on CFPL-TV in London, Ontario was about understanding autism. While it was an informative half hour that included a guest with an autistic son, Asperger's or any higher-functioning autism was not even mentioned. Even though the incidence of Asperger's is relatively frequent, Canadian media continues to completely ignore it - unlike media in the United States and Australia.

Societal awareness of major issues is largely dictated by the media - good media tells us what to think about. The Canadian media, particularly in Ontario, have had much coverage in recent years about autism and government funding - but only the most severe forms. Canadians cannot be made aware of Asperger's until television stations and networks, and the newspapers stop ignoring it. I can count the number of people on one hand that I know that had ever heard of Asperger's before I told them I had it - and even fewer knew anything about the condition. That is the fault of a media that prefers to spend its time on moose spottings in unusual areas, redneck festivals, and the death of an albino groundhog (all recent news stories on the above named television station).

I have noiticed that canada's autistic programs and organizations like to focus on the negatives.... I think it is true that many) of these people don't consider aspergers a part of autism, and in their minds the only 'Autism' is low functioning...I am not sure but maybe in their minds you have be ret*d (or at least thought to be ret*d) in order to qualify... I know some corganizations in the US like this.

US programs mention AS and are usually good with explanations, but not all the time.(for some reason CNN is a little more negative with autism, though.)

I don't care whether AS is considered a part of autism or not. I care about whether or not we can get appropriate resources to help us cope with things better, such as structured employment programs with connections. Ignoring us, however, I would take to be a complete different matter. I do not believe we should be ignored, because that would be doing us a great disservice. Some of us are struggling to get by, and we would really appreciate a much more positive response.

I'm not too happy with thrusting us as part of autism in general, at least not without making a clear distinction line between high- and low-functioning autism. I don't want people to see us as severely disabled, or else they'll start to believe that we can't function in the world and all, which is, of course, not true. So, I think there should be lots of programming catering to both low-functioning and high-functioning autistics, seperately.

- Ray M -

That's interesting.

In Nova Scotia, there's not much media period on Autism or Aspergers at all. In the town I live in, my son is the only one of his age group that has a dx. of Aspergers. For my age group, I'm likely the only one dx. with Aspergers in town.