why do people assume autism means below average intelligence?

Ava never gets invited on playdates. None of the moms who befriended me during pregnancy, all of us due within mere weeks of each other, have ever made any effort to get to know my child. They like my updates about her achievements on Facebook, and that is the extent of their involvement. I don’t need their approval, I don’t need their friendship. I do need them, and everyone else to understand a few things about my child. Autism is different for every person on the spectrum. For my daughter, that means shes behind her peers in social and emotional categories. Her language skills aren’t as advanced as theirs.

BUT

That also means that even though Ava isn’t even three yet she:

• Can correctly identify all the letters of the alphabet, say them and the sounds they make.
• Identifies *almost* any animal, and if she doesn’t know one she only needs to be told once to remember the name.
• Can count and identify numbers 1-20
• Knows all her colors, she even knows the difference between blue and cyan.
• Knows almost all the shapes including rhombus, hexagon, pentagon and parallelogram.

This is not the extent of her knowledge. She is insanely intelligent and far more advanced than her peers in these ways. She blows us all away day after day. But yet there are people out there who will write her off immediately based off her diagnosis and their failure to understand what Autism really is. There are people who will never encourage their kids to get to know her.

All I can hope for is her happiness, and that she makes friends that understand her and accept her for everything that makes her, her.

‘Flowers are for the dead’,

least that’s what

the mortals say.

I’ll come back when he bores me,

but Mama,

not today.”

-Daniella Michalleni

“Would that bright-eyed Athena should care to love you as once she cherished mighty Ulysses in the land of the Trojans, where we Achaeans suffered woes -for I never saw the Gods showing such open affection as Pallas Athena stood by him for all to see.”