Any mainstream schools doing anything for World Autism Day?

[RaRaTheNoisyLion]

And if so, I'd love to hear about it!!!

Recent study suggests prevalence of 1 in 68 8 year olds.

DS2's junior school are asked to wear blue and they are going to watch DVD of autistic children talking about what their life is like and do some other awareness raising activities.

No money needed, just trying to make the children more aware.

DS2 goes to a mainstream secondary school and Wednesday is a non-uniform day. He will be wearing everything Minecraft (hoody, t-shirt, badges, lanyard, wristbands). I expect he'll be raising awareness of ASD in his own way.

We had an assembly last Friday and the children are dressing in blue on Wed.

What's the significance of blue?

There not - but I will send in a message suggesting they do. Uniform is blue anyway.
There are 5 children with ASD (that I know of!) in DS school.

Dn's school is having a onesie day.
Ds's school (small school with a few autistic dc) not doing anything.

There's a "light it up blue" organisation for autism awareness and many countries light up significant landmarks with blue light. Not many in the UK though but hopefully that will be different this year.

Sydney Opera House

My local Cathedral always lights up blue. I don't know if the schools are doing anything.
1 in 68 seems very low compared to how many children I know on the spectrum, unless they are all drawn to the schools I know.

None that I know of but it would be great if they did.

Our primary school are doing something, yes. Great that they're raising awareness.

In our playgroup we are doing onsie Wednesday

I think I am going to suggest dd's school does something next year. Probably won't he all that popular considering how everyone bitches about the amount of dressing up days there are already but I have two dc with autism and I would love to see something done.

My DH and I are going to combine our form groups to talk about it (our DS has severe autism). School no knowledge of it afaik

Fantastic!!

Good luck everyone.

My dd2's school also had onsie Wednesday for autism awareness day.

Well we did it (I lead it...v emotional). Showed a video of our son and the news round special :)

Brilliant!

That must have been hard, stillenacht.

How did they respond?

One pupil left the room in tears. The others said nothing and just walked off...didn't even get a clap from the 40 assembled there...One lovely pupil smiled at me sympathetically whilst the video of my son was on. I truly think that empathy is decreasing in the young.....

Try not to dwell on the immediate response. The message has gone in. It WILL make a difference.

I don't think empathy is on the decrease, just the display of it.

Yes, maybe there is a big difference between what they show and what they really think and feel.

But I bet that what you showed them in the video, what you said and the very fact of standing up to talk about it will make a difference.