Perception – the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
Or: the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted.
The thing about perception is that perception can be built based on what they hear about things, what they see on TV and the influence around them and how they express things about certain topics.
The thing is, people’s perception of the Autism community has only started chaning I’d roughly say in the last maybe 15 years since they’ve only just started realising that autism isn’t something to fear like the charity Autism Speaks likes to portray. I do not support Autism Speaks, I think they are harmful to the Autism community and I know many people would agree with me.
To be honest, the reason autism has been perceived and portrayed the way it has in movies, TV and other media is because they’ve never been able to put the Autism community into a specific box where we’re supposed to fit in when it comes to society plus they’ve never really known what to do with females on the Autism Spectrum as the assessments and the tests are all aimed at men and boys so females have a harder journey getting a diagnosis because of this.
The thing about trying to change people’s perception is that do people want to change that perception? Will the portrayals seen in media change as well? These questions I don’t have the answers to but maybe people need to think about how harmful some perceptions can and portrayals in the media would help change that perception maybe if they stopped just portraying white men on the Spectrum and maybe look at other people who are on the Spectrum.
Thanks for reading.
G2G,
Crazy World Online
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