I've been meaning to revisit this post and since April is Autism Awareness Month this seems like a good time. I've been following this company and they seem to be doing very well. They now have two locations and have employed 92 people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I wish every car wash operator the best, but I'm especially pulling for this company to be successful.
My wife and I have two daughters who are 17 and 19. Our younger daughter was diagnosed with ASD at the age of 10. For quite a while my wife and I thought that our daughter would be dependent on us forever. Up until a year ago I didn't imagine my daughter becoming independent, much less going to college. A nagging thought in my mind was how would my wife and I provide for our daughter when our time was up. Fortunately, when our daughter was diagnosed with ASD my wife and I were able to find helpful interventions in the form of capable health care professionals and schools/teachers. About a year ago the interventions started to show signs that they were working and now my worry is how to help two daughters pay for college. I wish that I could say that every parent of a child with ASD will someday have as much hope as I now have and that every child with ASD will have an opportunity like the one that my daughter has in front of her. Sadly, I can't say this for many parents/children with ASD.
What is Autism Awareness? I'm still trying to figure that out. Many doctors are not "Aware" of Autism. If they were, it would not have taken 10 years for my daughter to be diagnosed with ASD. More importantly at this point in time, there would not be children with ASD today that have yet to be diagnosed with it or even screened for it. The most widely accepted screening tool to indicate if a child should be assessed for ASD is the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT). A free version of the M-CHAT is available online at
https://www.m-chat.org/. Every child needs to be screened for ASD early in life and often during their development. If you have young children, please make sure that their pediatrician screens them for ASD at every well child visit. If you have grand children, please consider asking your children if the pediatrician screens your grand child for ASD. Currently, it is estimated that 1 in 68 children (1 in 42 boys) in the U.S. are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and between 3.5 and 4 million people in the U.S. have ASD.
I would urge you to consider helping people with ASD by employing them when/if possible. I think that you will find it rewarding. Most of the time you only hear the challenging aspects of ASD. Some of the positive characteristics of many people with ASD are
loyalty, honesty, a desire to please others, good at focusing on tasks, good observation skills (amazing really) and they follow the rules and have little tolerance for people who don't.
Hopefully, I have helped to increase your awareness of autism.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Mike