My colleague was supposed to give a pre-assembly talk on Autism today, but he’s sick and thus, out of action. So, I have to fill his shoes. Trying to shape my incoherent thoughts into a sparkling gem on the way to work.

There’s a great show called “Love on the Spectrum”. Spectrum means a range of positions between two extreme points. This means that every autistic person is different

Nonetheless, there are some useful ways to understand someone with autism:

• hypersensitivity to sound (cover their ears because noises are amplified in their ears)
• inability to make eye contact during conversations
• inability to understand non-verbal expressions (they can’t tell that uou
• bite things and scratch themselves (calm themselves down)

Here is a Survivor video to understand how an autistic person named Eva had a meltdown and how her ex-tribemate, Joe calmed her down by holding her hands.

But we may have more in common than we think

Now that you understand more about how autistic people are different, let’s focus on the similarities. We may have more in common than we think. The following drawings are drawn by a dyslexic person, an ADHD person, and an autistic person respectively.

At the core of it all, dyslexia, ADHD and autism are just labels. Let’s focus on the fact that these talented individuals can draw.

In fact, look at this amazing autistic British artist. He was able to reproduce Singapore’s skyline from memory just by taking a helicopter ride for one hour. In Chinese, we have a saying: 天生我材必有用。It means that each of us has something unique to contribute to society.

Last but not least, I will like to leave you with these words from Pocahontas:

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew