In the wake of National Autism Awareness week, a short film called Diverted has been created by the national Autistic Society. The first of its kind to show you the experience of using public transport through the eyes of someone with autism.
By Hiba Bukhari
According to the National Autistic Society, approximately
700,000 people in the UK are on the autism spectrum.
Edge Hill university nursing society collated some
research which found that 99.5 % of people in the UK have heard of Autism,
however only 16% of autistic people and their families this the public
understands autism in a meaningful way.
We spoke to Saskia
Lupin, the actress in the film who has autism herself and she explained how “being
autistic can affect socialising and processing information but it can be difficult
since every autistic person will show different symptoms.” She went on to
mention how psychiatric research has shown its harder to diagnose in women
compared to men.”
The film
tries to explain sensory overload to the general public by watching Saskia
considering her trip on public transport and the sensory overload that many
people around her on the train cannot comprehend.
When
speaking Saskia, talked about how disabilities in general were viewed in the
media. “From what I've noticed in the media when it comes to disabilities, it gives
off the feeling that their explosive and drooling from the mouth if you catch
my drift?”
She talked about
the symptoms for her, as she struggles to understand people’s facial
expressions or tone of their voices. But with her performing arts training its helping
her try and understand people.
Prior to the film released this week, there was many videos on social media attempting to highlight how children in public, who may be having a breakdown may have autism.
Whilst
speaking to 20-year-old Amani Waris, who tweeted about her younger brother
under the hashtag AutismAwarenessWeek, I found that autism is a condition that
isn’t appropriately depicted in the media.
She talked
about how “the videos on social media should show either side of the story,
show the child at its best, otherwise people just have this negative assumption”
Amani’s
younger brother has been diagnosed as moderate to high on the autism spectrum,
this means there are many ways his life is different to how people assume it
would be.
But Amani
highlights that due to the portrayal in the media, autism gets limited
attention, depicting vast differences between real life experiences and what we
see in the media. “He doesn’t like loud noises and we carry his iPad and
headphones so he can block out the noise, watching his favourite TV shows.
Crowds and busy places are too much for him to absorb.”
Rather than
scaring people off by creating videos that are surfacing on the internet about
children having meltdowns, we should be looking to educate ourselves by talking
to people dealing with autism and learn how to deal in situations like this
where are people are slightly different to what you are expecting them to be.
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