1.
Autistic persons with caring and support family members, colleagues and friends have the advantage of knowing the security of a support group that is educated and informed about their condition and emotional needs whereas persons unaware of autism tend to give rise to stereotypes that can lead to disgust, hate, embarrassment and similarly upsetting situations.
Therefore, community members must be educated about autism as a disorder in order to help the affected person fit in with their world around.
2.
Coping with autism becomes less difficult when persons affected are looked upon as individuals with different set of emotional and intellectual needs and reactions; each disorder has different forms of manifestation and autism is no different in this sense, though it is a more complex medical condition.
When people in an autistic person's circle are made aware of the nature of the disorder and made to understand that this group of persons should not be compared with more functionally adaptable or lesser functional people, they can help promote desirable and positive behavior in autistic persons and help them overcome challenges.
Some of these include learning to overcome uncontrollable movements, speech limitations and building up communication abilities besides dealing with emotional inadequacies to emerge feeling normal human beings.
3.
With a good support system and network of caring people in place, an autistic person can have greater control over their professional and personal life, to the extent that many a time it is impossible to identify the disorder exists in such a capable, well adjusted individual at all.
Though, without proper training, awareness and education for treating autism, many affected individuals persistently have communication problems in displaying or explaining emotional aspects, which can make them seem uncaring when it is only a case of being unable to express feelings.
Thus, proper understanding should be promoted for autism in order to help autistic persons build relationship bonds and lead a happy, married life or experience love and caring in relationships, even if it takes time.
4.
Another autism stereotype that can be busted through generating awareness about the condition is the belief that autistic people have some amount of genius in them, which is only true for some individuals that are gifted with extraordinary talent and skills, such as in music or solving math problems or brilliant artistic skills etc.
However, the majority of autistic peole have normal skill ranges and some have low functioning skills that can be improved upon through patient learning and repetition with the support of caregivers.
Movies often mistakenly depict an autistic person fighting and overcoming challenges since this makes for a good storyline but it is seldom true for every person with this disorder to meet challenges head-on; having unrealistic expectations from an autistic person should not be encouraged as it can put undue pressure on them.
It is therefore necessary to promote awareness about the true nature of autism and foster understanding between the affected person and his or her family, co-workers and friends to help the individual lead a happy, fulfilling and healthy life, aided by patient understanding.