April was des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly as World Autism Aware­ness Month. Sat­ur­day 2nd April was de­clared Autism Aware­ness Day (WAAD). Its aim has been to raise in­ter­est of and pro­mote this hid­den dis­abil­i­ty which af­fects mil­lions of chil­dren and adults world­wide. The re­cent cam­paign by the Autis­tic So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASTT) has high­light­ed the im­por­tance of re­al­is­ing this com­plex dis­or­der of the hu­man brain. Their ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed a fam­i­ly day on the April 2, 2011 fol­lowed by a chil­dren's event re­cent­ly on Sat­ur­day April 16. A grand walkathon oc­curred on the April 30 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. It start­ed at 3 pm to high­light Autism Aware­ness month and bring at­ten­tion to this dis­abil­i­ty. The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so part­nered with one of their cor­po­rate spon­sors, Re­pub­lic Bank. They had booths in Trinci­ty and Long Cir­cu­lar Malls re­spec­tive­ly sell­ing jer­seys and oth­er items pro­mot­ing their cam­paign.

The team led by their pres­i­dent, Teresina Sie­u­nar­ine are do­ing a great job with lim­it­ed fund­ing and re­sources to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life of peo­ple with Autism in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It's a pity their ef­forts are con­tin­u­al­ly go­ing un­re­ward­ed and un­no­ticed. I have had the plea­sure of join­ing the group this year be­ing a mem­ber and part time vol­un­teer. It was one of my per­son­al goals of be­ing a en­tre­pre­neur, writer and giv­ing back to the so­ci­ety. They as­sist­ed me in di­ag­nos­ing what I had, a mild form of autism called 'As­perg­er Syn­drome'. It was not an easy sit­u­a­tion to come to terms with or ac­cept at first. Through­out my ex­is­tence, I had to over­come many prob­lems and chal­lenges in life I had al­ways sus­pect­ed that there was some­thing dif­fer­ent and unique about me which could not be pin­point­ed. My child­hood days grow­ing up was not the sweet­est ex­pe­ri­ence to re­mem­ber. De­spite pos­sess­ing great in­tel­li­gence and knowl­edge, I still had some learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties that im­pact­ed my school and work life. I was al­so at a ear­ly age a vic­tim of psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse from fam­i­ly, rel­a­tives and strangers and sub­ject­ed to teas­ing from school­mates which got me con­stant­ly en­gaged in fights.

How­ev­er, in spite of this I al­ways be­lieve these ex­pe­ri­ence both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive have shaped the man I am to­day. I am quite proud of what I have been able to ac­com­plish both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly. As­perg­er Syn­drome, as I had men­tioned is a mild form of autism. It is a spec­trum dis­or­der char­ac­terised by prob­lems with com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and un­usu­al repet­i­tive be­hav­iours.

Be­hav­iours may range from mild to se­vere. An in­di­vid­ual with As­perg­ers' is some­times de­scribed as 'high func­tion­ing' and if any may prob­a­bly ex­pe­ri­ence de­lays in speak­ing. They would pos­sess nor­mal in­tel­li­gence and have no lan­guage prob­lems typ­i­cal of autism. In ad­di­tion per­sons may have strong gram­mar and ver­bal skills. The chal­lenge lies in that they are seen as too lit­er­al and hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty un­der­stand­ing non-ver­bal cues such as body lan­guage and oth­er peo­ple's emo­tions. Oth­er symp­toms in­clude clum­sy move­ments, ob­ses­sive or repet­i­tive rou­tines and sched­ules and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to sen­so­ry in­for­ma­tion such as sound, light or taste.

It was first dis­cov­ered in the 1940's by a Vi­en­nese pe­di­a­tri­cian named Hans As­perg­er. In con­duct­ing his test on his pa­tients, (most­ly males) he de­scribed a set of be­hav­iour­ial pat­terns in the boys as show­ing nor­mal in­tel­li­gence and lan­guage de­vel­op­ment but hav­ing se­ri­ous im­paired so­cial and com­mu­ni­ca­tions skills with poor co-or­di­na­tion. The most dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tic of As­perg­ers' is a child's ob­ses­sive in­ter­est in an ob­ject or top­ic. To the un­trained eye, they seem nor­mal but just be­hav­ing dif­fer­ent­ly. Peo­ple with this con­di­tion are ca­pa­ble of cop­ing with dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties in life but have a ten­den­cy to be so­cial­ly awk­ward and im­ma­ture. They may be seen by oth­ers as be­ing odd or ec­cen­tric. There is a lot more in­for­ma­tion on this dis­abil­i­ty which can be ob­tained from the Autis­tic So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, on their web­site: www.autismtt.org They are help­ful and won­der­ful full time vol­un­teers who are more than hap­py to as­sist and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion. Their con­tact num­ber is: 646-5506. The As­so­ci­a­tion can al­so be con­tact­ed via email which is: autismtt@ex­cite.com or at autismtt@gmail.com.

What is sad and very dis­turb­ing is that there is no gov­ern­ment sup­port or fund­ing. Our Pres­i­dent has held many meet­ings with many gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials the re­sults as usu­al be­ing all talk and no ac­tion.

Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed and the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go have been lead­ing the cor­po­rate sec­tor so far. But we need more com­pa­nies to get on board. Let us cit­i­zens em­brace chil­dren, young per­sons and adults who may have var­i­ous forms of Autism. They have a right to re­ceive all the love, sup­port and treat­ment nec­es­sary to sus­tain their ex­is­tence and make a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety. We have no right to dis­crim­i­nate, stig­ma­tise or ridicule. They are many per­sons out there, oc­cu­py­ing var­i­ous pro­fes­sion­al and so­cial lev­els who may have this dis­or­der and may not re­alise it. Our at­ti­tude needs to change so that our coun­try can make that jour­ney amongst na­tions in giv­ing a voice to mil­lions of per­sons who are un­di­ag­nosed, mis­un­der­stood and look­ing to us for help.

Mark Her­nan­dez

Via e-mail