Autism and Other Disabilities

01.02.2011

I watched the movie Temple Grandin on HBO that stars Claire Danes whom I absolutely love. She plays the woman Temple Grandin who is an autistic person and overcomes challenges to create a system for slaughterhouses that are more humane for cattle. It’s a wonderful movie, very well done and, obviously, well acted.

The movie often touches upon instances of hardship for Temple growing up, painfully sticking out from the rest, observing and interpreting the word differently. Students made fun of her and some would go out of their way to be mean.

It breaks my heart how cruel we are to each other. I understand that kids may not know any better but in my limited amount of child observation, I think it’s safe to say that if a child goes out of his/her way to be cruel to another child or make fun of them, it stems from something deeper. I would say that the parents aren’t doing their job in steering the child into a more compassionate circle. Of course, each scenario is different and, as I think I’ve mentioned a while ago, I’m not immune from being a part of a crowd that makes fun of someone.

I think it boils down to education. Unfortunately, I’ve worked with children who have some sort of a learning disability and though I’m not equipped to diagnose, there are ways to guess that a child’s learning ability is off. What breaks my heart is when parents refuse to accept that their child has a problem as is often the case in the Lithuanian community with those parents who are immigrants. They believe their child’s inability to learn is a reflection on them so it’s easier to ignore the problem. And any blame is placed on the teacher.

Whatever the situation, being aware of a child’s needs is important and even with the array of knowledge that our society has on the different disabilities I think we could do more. I think parents can do more.