Does autism make you magnificent?

I train people to understand autism and I often hear about the extremely gifted people with autism. There are some incredible people with autism who have tapped into that brilliant part of their mind and excel in one or some areas. There is a beautiful story of an autistic man who took a 20 minute helicopter ride over New York then drew (in pen) the entire city scape perfectly. Wow!!!

I'm not convinced that we need to put pressure on our autistic friends to be extremely gifted and to expect them to live up to that pressure. But what I do know is that autism does not need to be a deficit or be seen as a deficit. It really is just different. What does bother me is when people impose expectations on autistic people to 'fit in'. I wish people would realise how hard it is for a person with autism to 'fit in'.

Imagine a world where we accept that a man's brain and a woman's brain are completely different and in addition to those two we have a third brain - the autistic brain. Wow!! Imagine what we could all learn from each other?

Magnificent Kid, Dani Bowman not only started and runs an animation company employing people with autism, but she is also an artist. Her detail is impeccable. Magnificent Kid, Avalon Theisen also has autism and she too is an artist.

Look at these pics, admire them, and never let anybody tell you that autism is less. As Temple Grandin says... different not less.

So does autism make you magnificent? No, because EVERYBODY is magnificent!

Love and blessings,
Kerryn

Welcome!

Welcome to the Magnificent Kids! blog. As new and exciting things unfold I will be posting them here. I hope you are enjoying the website and all of the cool pages. I also hope you will be inspired by the amazing kids who contributed to the book, but also be inspired by the contributors to the Superhero Headquarters page. It is so true that anybody can make a difference and if we can, why wouldn't we?
I have a firm belief that innately people want to do great things to help the planet, but often don't know where to start as the problems seem too big. Stick with us and we'll try to unpack things in a simple, down to earth way.

Kerryn :)