How Awareness and Acceptance Help Children With ASD

All people have the need for acceptance because of how humans connect and interact with others. Even the most introverted people need human approval, albeit minimal. It is the same for people with autism. For children with autism, however, it can be harder to feel accepted among their peers. This brings the need for autism awareness to the foreground.

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How Does Awareness Help Children With ASD?

Autism awareness has gained much traction over the last few years, with the 2nd of April being designated as World Autism Awareness Day. Along with World Autism Day, many organizations have chosen to observe April as autism month, where increased effort is put into improving the awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the signs of ASD in kids and adults. These organizations often use autism awareness shirts, autism awareness quotes, autism awareness colours and the autism awareness symbol to raise awareness.

Autism awareness helps with:

• Improved inclusion for people with autism.
• Decreased bullying and exclusion.
• Greater support in schools, at home, etc.
• A better understanding of ASD in communities.
• Better integration of people with ASD into communities, jobs, etc.

When it comes to autism awareness vs acceptance, it is correct to say that awareness ultimately leads to acceptance, which is a daily requirement for children (and all people) to reach their full potential. Raising awareness for causes like these can be crucial as it advocates primarily for people who might have a hard time advocating for themselves.

Why Is It Important For Autistic Children to Feel Accepted?

With acceptance from the world around them, children with autism will have an easier time navigating the hurdles of everyday life without having the added stress of being judged and ridiculed. In a world where inclusion is becoming more prevalent, autism acceptance can provide these children with:

• Adequate validation of their condition and emotions.
• Improved self-acceptance, confidence and mental health.
• Better relationships with peers.
• Increased quality of everyday life.

This increased sense of self-acceptance and compassion will give kids with ASD the needed confidence to openly interact with peers, participate in school activities and try new things. This is precisely why acceptance is vital for the development and growth of children with ASD.

What Happens to People When They Don’t Feel Accepted?

Rejection can have a severe negative impact on children that can be difficult to recover from. Rejection can come from many different places, such as rejection from family, peers, teachers, community members, etc. Rejection is something that most people have to deal with sometimes, but some types of rejection can be more crushing than others.

For children diagnosed with autism, it may sometimes feel that most of society doesn’t accept them. This doesn’t, however, mean that society is bad. Perhaps this feeling of rejection comes simply from the fact that many people don’t know about or fully understand ASD.

The negative emotions associated with rejection can be tough to deal with when the rejection comes from peers. ASD kids may already be struggling to communicate, connect and engage with others, and this rejection might discourage them even further from developing their communication skills. 

In this case, it is not uncommon that children with ASD will withdraw from interaction completely.  It might also result in behavioural outbursts and stimming. These self-soothing behaviours are often also misunderstood by peers who might see it as bad behaviour. This is where awareness comes in; when others can understand these behaviours and show compassion and acceptance, it can ultimately reduce these harmful cycles for Autistic kids.

Autism awareness can benefit everyone, not just people with ASD. There are many ways that you can help to spread awareness this autism awareness month. By raising awareness about these conditions, we are paving the way for a more inclusive, understanding future for all.

At Autism Centre For Kids, we see each child as an individual, and we aim to raise awareness about the potential, strengths and talents that each autistic child has to offer. Contact us today for more information about how you can get involved and help raise awareness for autism acceptance. We’d love to hear from you!