People With Autism Become Adults
I have been doing some informal research into how many people with autism are in churches. I had a very interesting comment that I think reflects common thinking on autism.
One pastor responded by saying, “We don’t have many children in our church.” The funny thing is that I never mentioned children in my question. I was asking about “people with autism.”
It is a common attitude to equate people with autism with children with autism. Much of the conversation I hear about including people with autism in churches is in the context of children’s ministry.
I’m not pointing any fingers. When our son was diagnosed with autism, I asked the developmental pediatrician about adults with autism. I could picture children with autism but had trouble imagining adults with autism.
However, if all goes well, children with autism develop into adults with autism. In fact, in about six months, my son will officially be an adult with autism.
I think it is great that churches are active in looking at how to integrate children with autism. But please don’t forget the adults!
These adults with autism may be nonverbal and live in a group home or may be quirky people who are socially awkward. Everyone on the spectrum deserves a place within the church.
Be autism aware but be aware of all stages of life from babies to seniors.
I am 83 yrs, when I was younger we never heard about autism, I had 4 children, now we know that I & all the kids were Autistic. We just thought we were different, maybe just a little weird. The kids were all very smart, but had a very hard time in school dealing with other school mates, they just didn’t fit in. Each one of us is different, have different degrees of autism problems, Me the least, one son the most problems. The others in between, but still different from each other.
I am hearing more and more stories like this. Certain forms of autism were completely missed but now more people are being diagnosed.
I was in my 70’s when we recognized that we were ASD, my daughter found a site with questions & when we filled in the questionaire up came our answer. Yes we were autistic. At last we had answers about our selves, that explained US. It didn’t change who we were, but explained why we were,who we were. We talked to my other kids, they also were glad to have those answers. We have studied autism ever since & as my daughter & I live together, we work on understanding ourselves so that our lives are more peaceful together.