 Artism and inclusion. What is autism? Autism is a lifelong spectrum condition which affects how people see, hear, feel and experience the world. Each person with autism has their strengths and challenges. The month of April has been set aside as World Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month, with this year's theme centered around inclusion. To accept me is to include me. To include me goes beyond integration, immense giving me a seat at a table and having my voice heard. Why inclusion? Inclusion works to the benefit of all. An individual with autism gets to participate in programs in their community with their siblings, friends and neighbors, receive preparation for adult life in the community and learn from their peers who serve as role models to help them with social skills and communication, lack of which is a major descriptive characteristic of an individual with autism. So, if acceptance means inclusion, what benefits of inclusion translates to an improved quality of life for an individual living with autism? How then can we as a community, to imply the sculpture of inclusion? It starts from the home. Rather than segregating, you can pick moments or activities to be intentional about it and build from there. For example, meal time. Decide as a family to share one meal together. If the individual with autism has dietary options, be intentional about including his meal option in the family meal time menu. What it says to the individual with autism is, you are a part of this family. You deserve to be on this table and your choices are accepted. At school, create an enabling environment as school owners and classroom teachers to accommodate the learning style of the individual with autism in your environment. Be intentional about interaction. Create learning content that is well understood by all. Create a supportive pair culture, both inside and outside the classroom. What this does is that it empowers learners to respect and trust each other, making empathy and caring fashionable and reinforcing positive and pro-social attitudes. As an employer, have policies that support inclusion in the workplace. Adapt your management and communication style to engage more effectively with different team members. As an employee, consider colleagues' needs and personal circumstances when planning activities. Consciously connect with people who are not the same as you. Practice active listening. That is, listen to hear and understand. Don't be quick to jump into conversations with statements or questions. I don't know about it being fashionable. When you say something as fashionable, it means it can go away. We want these things that we are being intentional about to stay. Fashion comes and goes, but the awareness, the intention is permanent and to be grown on and added to. Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but what I'm trying to say is that when you're building awareness, you want to get people to bind to what you're saying. And to get people to bind, you have to make it something that is attractive. For example, you have a classroom structure whereby everybody knows that. Because you helped Timmy get that food, you really did enjoy it. Oh, I helped, you know, that pride. I was the one that helped Timmy with his lunch. I was the one that helped Tonya, for example. I mean, on the playground, it was struggling. That pride, that's what I mean, but it becomes fashionable. You have that swag. Like the bodice system in the classroom. That's what I mean by fashionable. I mean, if for example, you know that when kids come to my space, I'm talking about as someone that has a business now, for example, like you have a play, we are in everything. Anytime kids come, they feel at home, they dizzy. You also as a business owner, you go proudly to say, my space is inclusive. That pride, that's what I mean by that. And then someone that wants to come and do copy and paste, will have to copy and paste that inclusiveness to, you know. So that's, you've turned it into a trend. Inclusion is, that's what I mean by that. Inclusion is cool. It's cool. Oh, absolutely, it's cool, yes. So by fashionable, you're saying it makes it something worth doing, something that everybody wants to do? Yeah, absolutely, something that you want to emulate, I want to, you know, I want to be on this trend. Yeah, on this trend. The name being called, I want to be a part of it. Absolutely. And so because we would copy, perhaps, then we'll take everything and then we'll replicate it. And the bottom line is to keep on giving and keep on providing opportunities for everybody to be there. That doesn't work better with children. I feel like children would adapt it much more quickly. It's something that you see in schools, but I just envision like, you know, adults who are being told to enter this space, you know, just being very resistant because they might think it might cost them more money. It's something that they think, why would their customers be interested? Why would people want to be interested? They wouldn't turn their customers away. Well, it's because it has not affected them yet. I mean, if you're a business owner, you have a relative, you have a child, or a relative on the spectrum, then in setting up your business, trust me, you would put that into consideration. I know some very good, there's this ice cream, really good ice cream business, and they have children on the spectrum, and I know how much they try to figure out and get organic. Organic was called the ingredients for the ice cream now. So you will definitely put it into consideration when it affects you, and that's the point I'm getting at. The point I'm getting at is when we put ourselves in other people's shoes, when you know as a business owner, you're putting in the whole, you're looking at the total picture, not just the people you want to save, then you'll be more considerate. My question would be why should you wait till it affects you before you step into that space? Whatever happens to you, just empathy, understanding, knowledge, arming yourself with the right tools and all of that. So if you use the example that Charlotte gave in terms of family time, okay? So you have, let's say I have my child, a toddler or young child that's on the spectrum, and I take them over to the cousin's house. Because cousin A and B don't understand what's going on with this cousin, so the parents are like, no, no, it's the bad wife that we married, whatever, and then he says, so you kind of get a bit of that. But what I think should be more logical, hopefully, if we're all logical beings, is that you would want to step back and figure out why does this individual, why does this child always respond like this? Have that conversation with a parent who's even come out. Remember the question Tonya asked, are you going to keep yourself locked away because you can't fit into this space? So if you've taken that bold step to go out, why don't you tell the next person, and that person be more open and accepting or listening to logic. I don't see why we should wait for the moon to turn green before. It's like we're constantly waiting. That's where empathy sets in. Like, there's this before, like she rightly said, before you even consider, there's this judgmental thing, the bad wife, oh, why is this child behaving like this? People are not willing, and they are not ready to take themselves out to figure out what exactly is going on here. Why is this child not responding? Very interesting. Very interesting about her. Up next is Asia for Kaku. Stay with us.