my speach

Imagine a bright light flashing in your eyes or a loud whistle being blown in your ear…… (pause) Something that feels slimy or rough that you don’t want to touch or your least favourite smell….. Now imagine all this happening at the same time imagine how distracting or frustrating that would be. Now you might be able to understand how my friend with autism feels a lot of the time. Now this all may seem a little scary but once you  have the facts and you see beyond the differences then you see that people are people and that with a little patience a friendship is waiting.

Today I’m going to share my experiences about  my friend with autism, statistics and my personal feelings on acceptance  .

Let me start   way back in grade 2 when we took gym together he was very quiet and shy. He came to gym class with a teacher to help him do the things that we were doing. I was a little nervous but i eventually went to him and talked to him.  He didn’t talk to me but i noticed that slowly he started following me and doing what i was doing. And this is how our friendship started.   last year when we were in the same class i really started to notice all the things that he could really do. We liked the same music and he loved playing skittles. I was very happy that i found out that he was in my class this year. My friend is the   most funny and friendliest person in my class. He always jokes around saying “I got your arm” and hugs you and says I got you. Whenever one of our friends are not at school he always asks where he or she is. Every morning he will say “ hi” to everyone and he knows all are names. He has a way to always make people smile and laugh.  He always loved to be involved in everything that me and my friends do. He loves to do something very important in our games for example be the referee or the commentator  Outside or in the gym,  if someone gets hurt he’s always the first one to ask “are you ok” so when he gets hurt I always try to be the first one to say are you ok. Helping is something he loves to do and he loves to do work. He is very smart in math and is amazing on the computer he was also in the talent show last year …….. now that takes a lot of courage!!!! But the one thing i  know for sure is  he just likes to be  included. Don’t we all.

Autism is a lifelong neurological disorder and has no cure. Autism affects 1 in 100 people. The official definition of Autism is that it is a learning condition and  the result of a neurological disorder that has an effect on normal brain function, affecting development of the person’s communication and social interaction skills. What that all means is that there brains work differently so they may not act or behave like everyone else. People with autism have trouble to communicate they think in pictures. for example If i said “hit the switch” you might know that it means turn off the light but because people with autism think in pictures those images hitting and switches will come to their mind so they have to be taught that hitting the switch means turn off the light. Temple grandin says ‘ I’m a visual thinker not a language base thinker. My brain is like google images.” Another way their brain works differently is some people with autism feel their senses very strongly and that all information gets very distracting. Like i said in the beginning that  flashlight in your eyes might just be the sunlight or that loud whistle in your ear might just be the recess bell. Or that really gross thing you don’t want to touch might just be a little bit of hand

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