Awareness or Acceptance?
2 Minute Read
We just wrapped up April, widely recognized today as Autism Acceptance Month. These important 30 days have recently changed from being known as a month of awareness to a month of acceptance. Let’s talk about this change.
Autism Awareness Month was first established in April 1970 by the Autism Society of America to increase public understanding of autism and advocate for the rights of autistic individuals.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued a presidential proclamation officially recognizing April as National Autism Awareness Month. This decision was a huge moment in bringing more public awareness to the diagnosis and the community.
April was chosen deliberately. It’s a month that symbolizes spring, growth, and new beginnings, and therefore serves as a hopeful metaphor for public education and change.
The move from awareness to acceptance started in 2011, alongside the broader conversation about shifting from a deficit-based to an identity-based view of autism.
A deficit-based approach focuses on what a person can’t do, using language like “suffers from autism”, “low-functioning”, “communication delays”, etc. This frames autism as something to “fix” or “cure”.
An identity-based approach, on the other hand, recognizes autism as a natural part of human diversity. It encourages terms like “autistic person,” “differences in communication,” and “sensory needs,” and it respects autism as an essential part of someone's identity.
Switching the message from awareness to acceptance follows the neurodiversity movement and champions self-advocacy. It focuses on autism simply being a different way that the brain works, instead of trying to fear-monger and pathologize autistic people as broken or in need of fixing. Acceptance is about recognizing, respecting, and including autistic people for who they are, rather than expecting them to fit into neurotypical expectations.
This shift in language may seem small, but it symbolizes a powerful meaning. Embracing acceptance over awareness helps normalize autism and honors the ongoing work of the autistic community to educate, advocate, and build a more inclusive world for everyone.
Let’s not stop at awareness. Follow autistic voices, support organizations led by the autistic community, and take time to learn from those with this lived experience. True inclusion doesn’t just involve listening, it requires action.
Here are some great places to start:
~Chloe
It’s awareness and acceptance. Your awareness of autism entirely depends on where you live, how visible autistic people are to you, along with a variety of other factors. In the US you largely see white cis men with low support needs or white people with high support needs but rarely anything in between. Notice I’m using support needs, not functioning levels. Autistics with moderate support needs? Black/brown/other autistics of color? Autistics with multiple disabilities? Autistics who are semiverbal/semi speaking and nonspeaking/nonverbal? They exist but do you see them? This is why we need both.