History of Autism - Turning Pointe Autism Foundation

History of Autism

GettyImages-1327494180
Did you know that autism was thought of as childhood schizophrenia? I didn’t either, until I started researching. That was back in 1911. Since then we have come a long way. We have schools, centers, and residential places that help people with autism live full authentic lives. Here at Turning Pointe Autism Foundation we are, as it says in the title, a foundation. We are also a school, and an award winning school on top of that. We have a motto that states that autism is simply a different way to learn. That honestly is what it is. Way back when autism was first discovered it was something that we were conditioned & told to fear. We treated these people like animals. We would lock them away without a second thought. We force fed them medications and prescribed treatments that did nothing but exacerbate the condition. We would treat them as aliens; essentially because we really didn’t know what autism was.

Maybe you’ve heard of Temple Grandin? She is a world renowned author & professor on autism. Which she herself has. Temple has written several books & actually has a biopic movie named “Temple Grandin”. The movie shows the struggles she faced, and still faces as autistic person. But, it doesn’t accurately give a description of EVERY autistic person. You may have heard (or maybe not) that when you meet a person with autism, you have only met ONE person. That meaning, that every autistic person is different. Just like every person is different from one another. At Turning Pointe, our teachers are dedicated to help these children live full, happy & healthy lives. They teach them in ways that work for the individual student. They also help the kids have fun in school. Which is usually not a possibility if they were in a normal school with different programming. Over the past 75 years, we have come a long way. We still have a long way to go. But with all the research being done, and questions being answered, I’m confident that we’ll get there.