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Special Needs

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It’s Autism Awareness Month; it rolls around every year at the same time. I, and all parents and caregivers, grasp at this month with all our might in hopes that we can somehow use it to improve the world for our children. This feeling is something most people who do not love and care for a child with a profound disability, whose children grow to live independently, do not and will never understand. The Puzzle Piece We spent nearly a century fighting to identify Autism. To give it a name and identify features that could be jotted down, then studied and observed. The symbolism of the puzzle piece is now used to illustrate the growing understanding of the bigger picture that is Autism. From this picture, the identifiable diagnosis, we birthed ‘Autism Awareness.’ We now have a description, an identity that we can use to educate the greater population, and…

What does the word inclusion mean to us? If you ask me, a mother of a 4-year-old girl with Down Syndrome. I will say that it means that she is valued and given equal opportunities to flourish in society, as any neurotypical child would. If you ask my husband, he will say that it means the whole world looks at Reeyah through his lens and appreciates her uniqueness. If Reeyah’s older sister Aayra gets asked this question, she would only want other children at the playground to stop staring at her sister and asking her why her sister cannot walk yet. Lastly, if Reeyah gets asked about what inclusion means to her, she would just want everyone around her to stop treating her like a baby. Her petite frame often makes her look like a 2-year-old. Different things to different people The “In” in inclusion means different things to members…