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Beneath the Surface
Understanding Autism By Kelly Burgess
The fact that Balsamo did not know that boy was autistic, nor did he know that Joey Rosenbloom was autistic until Sharon told him, is telling. This, as Rosenbloom explains it, is what can make life doubly difficult for the parent of an autistic child.
"The world can judge autistic children very harshly," says Rosenbloom. "Part of the problem is that these children wear a mask of normalcy. You can't see anything wrong with them – they aren't in a wheelchair or afflicted with an obvious genetic condition that you can adjust to. After reading this book, there is no way that you can say an autistic child doesn't have feelings or emotions."
The danger in those assumptions is that it can serve to further isolate autistic children and their parents in a society where parenting is already individualistic to the point of often being isolating. We do not have villages or communities to raise our children; we raise our children. As a result, parents who take an autistic child out in public, instead of meeting compassion and understanding for the challenges, often are scorned for not being strict enough.
Even more distressing is that parents are often given extremely negative information when their child is first diagnosed. Sometimes they're told that the child will never relate to them, will never be able to function or communicate and will never overcome their disorder. It's not unusual for institutionalization to be recommended. This attitude is potentially robbing those families of an incredibly valuable bond with their special child. Rosenbloom writes, "Being loved by someone with autism is a cherished and coveted experience perhaps because when loved, we are linked to him or her in a manner that transcends surface layers."