Dear Noah:

We watched "Autism is a World" last night on CNN. Was a bit disappointed in it. While it revealed ONE person's story I think CNN was trying to make a correlation and show this was how ALL autistics are. Maybe they were not but we took it that way. Sue Rubin's story was "her" story. Not "all" autistics have her degree of communication problems. Some have more. Some have less. Some would hardly notice any problems with communication at all in public. AND NOT all autistics will need one-on-one support their entire lives. Many go on to live very normal successful fulfilling lives on their own where they work and support themselves. They have learned over time how to take care of themselves, etc. Perhaps one thing this documentary proved was how important "early" intervention is to at least provide a child with autism the basics on coping in our world. The longer you wait to provide that the longer it takes for that child to have any ability to cope in our world on their own. Unfortunately some children never get any help and probably end up in some institution somewhere.

And there are some autistics who are severely mentally retarded. Some have ABOVE AVERAGE intelligence and are even in the SUPERIOR range in many areas. I think everyone tends to lump autistics in one category and unfortunately that should not be the case just like all other people are not lumped into one category and likeness. Autistics are indeed all different. Many have similar traits but in essence they end up being different from each other and have varying degrees of their disorder and traits and "quirks".

So...while the documentary was good and provided much information into Sue Rubin's world....everyone has to remember that is not every autistic person's world.