Libraries and Autism
November 14, 2013
Program on Autism Spectrum Disorders
No website for this event specifically but www.autismspeaks.org is a valuable resource.
What did I learn?
1 in 88 individuals in Maryland have some kind of autism spectrum disorder (2012 and parents of autistic children spend more money on health care and therapies than parents of children in any other disability group.
The core deficit of autism is the inability of the person with autism to empathize.
To know one child with autism is to know one child - you can't generalize.
How does what I learned apply to me and to libraries in general?
The statistics tell me that there are children in my service community with autism.
I know one child personally but he is very high functioning. What I learned at this workshop was that I need to be more aware, especially when dealing with individuals who use my branch. Because my community is small, at the moment there is no need to offer programming specifically for individuals with autism, but that may change in the future. With the increase of this disorder, libraries in general need to welcome and help to facilitate community inclusion of these persons.
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