We have taught about the medical diagnosis of autism for almost 25 years. Before the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded brain research, teaching felt like simply trying to convince people, without evidence, that behavior and communication were different because an autistic person’s brain and body made them that way. People still walked away skeptical. Teachers still blamed parenting. Folks said it was vaccines. Giving talks felt weak and at times pointless when too many people had closed minds.
Pictures Speak 1,000 Words
The number of skeptics leaving our classes dramatically reduced once NIH-funded brain imaging and other studies showed the medical facts. Autistic brains are wired differently. Some parts – like the piece that controls facial muscles being really small in many – are very different than average. Teaching with images finally showed how and why autistic people needed to do the various things others found hard to understand. Science helped us stop much of the punishment, torment, and abuse heaped on children and adults who moved, talked, and behaved in ways others found confusing or unacceptable.
The NIH helps parents, other caregivers, and supporters learn to adapt their ways to better nurture and accept the people they love, care for, and support. It helps employers tap talents while giving reasonable accommodations to let people flourish while building corporate revenues. And research helps law enforcement make better decisions on a 911 call response, and judges to better understand when someone makes a disability-based error or simply is doing “autistic things” lacking criminal intent, which triggered a stranger’s 911 call.
We cannot stand by and watch the erasure of science that’s been truly lifesaving. Dumbing down society by cancelling scientific fact finding is unacceptable. We cannot count the emails and phone calls traded with our very good research friends at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Excellence in Autism Research, or with other generous NIH scientists nationwide who help us translate things like highly technical functional MRI science to the literally thousands of people we have reached. It has mattered a great deal. Words cannot express how much.
The Importance of Autism Research
The Autism Connection of Pennsylvania does not rely one bit on NIH funding to exist. However, our population’s survival relies on the gifts NIH science has provided in terms of our own understanding, and our ability to show others the right way to treat people. This has been critical in preventing or resolving the most dangerous situations: when people explore without fear (“wanderers,”) or are victims of neglect and abuse, or are accused of crimes and fall into the criminal legal system and prison. Homeless people, those without adequate food, people left alone in the world after their parents die, children bullied, adults fired due to basic misunderstandings, people with epilepsy or other common coexisting disorders, children and adults needed psychiatric care and medications – the things we commonly deal with every single day to the tune of about 260 help requests a month – all have been helped by our understanding how people internally process information, or how they cannot and need external help.
Please do anything you can to save NIH funding. Destroying decades of successful work by extremely smart and incredibly kind research friends is criminal and a huge talent loss, not to mention a tremendous waste of dollars invested for all the right reasons, with critically valuable outcomes to date. The future is in our hands – and we must fight to preserve it for the autism community.
