Autism Behavior and Social Norms

While the world of the study of neurological disorders is vast and comprehensive, it is ultimately limited to three types of people: health professionals, the afflicted, and the relatives of the afflicted. The rest of the world remains ignorant, uninformed and, sadly, highly disinterested in this type of illness and behavioral problem. While the general public's tacit indifference to some health concerns spans the entire spectrum of neurological disorders, the condition of autism receives some of the most significant misunderstanding.

Autism Behavior and Prejudice

One of the reasons autism behavior is misunderstood by the general public is because there is a root prejudice that exists among people when it comes to this type of disorder and that root prejudice is simply the convenient disbelief in the existence of a neurological disorder. That is, "If you really are crazy (the real term the common person has used and will forever continue to use for mental illnesses as it remains socially acceptable), then it is your own fault and you could snap out of it tomorrow." This attitude is followed by the other two common attitudes: "There is really nothing wrong with you -- it is all in your mind" or "You're a fake trying to get something."

While the public's attitude has come far from the early days of mental health of locking the mentally ill is cages and placing them outside in the rain to correct behavior problems, the public has only come that far because they were FORCED to stop this kind of treatment by federal law and the fact that twenty five years ago can be defined as 'the early days.' As one can see, autism behavior therapy, along with other forms of behavioral therapy, saw most of the common treatment derived from methods of torture. 

Benign Awkwardness

Most autism behavior takes on the appearance of social awkwardness. The key here is that autism behavior takes on an appearance of something rather than manifesting the actual being. Social awkwardness is the lack of a specific social skill. The autism behavior that appears to be the lack of a social skill is actually a mental condition that creates a cause/effect response that will not be alleviated with the development of a skill over time. Autism behavior and autism behavioral therapy are not issues that can be explained in brief as they are complicated matters and their understanding will always remain in the realm of the three aforementioned 'enlightened' groups.