April Is Autism Awareness, Acceptance, and Appreciation Month

Happy World Autism Day! April has evolved from the original concept of raising awareness to include much more, but it still gives us an opportunity to learn, improve, and celebrate. Why learn more about working with people who have autism? There are lots of reasons, but here’s one for my fellow SLPs. If you are a school-based clinician, there is an excellent chance that you have these students on your caseload. According to the 2014 SLP Schools Survey Caseload Report, 90% of the school SLPs serve kids with ASD.

Whether you are a teacher, therapist, family member, paraprofessional or just a curious person, understanding more about autism, especially from people WITH autism, will be an enriching experience. Whether you #LightItUpBlue or choose to #WalkInRed with #RedInstead, let’s renew our efforts to provide better communication supports to people with autism.

Today, we share some ideas both for increasing our own understanding of autism and the experience of autistic people and working to help them achieve their own goals in life.

• Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month: 5 Videos for Kids
• 20 Ways for SLPs to Celebrate Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month
• 10 Things to do for Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month
• 30 Things to Do for Autism Awareness Month
• Keep Learning About Core: 8 More Things to Do for Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month

Do you have favorite ways to celebrate autism each April? We’d love to hear about them.

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American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2014). 2014 Schools Survey Report: SLP caseload characteristics. Available from www.asha.org/research/memberdata/schoolssurvey/.