By Oliver Nweke
Parents of persons with autism in Nigeria have seek for the support and understanding of the community and religious groups to create awareness to ensure a more inclusive society for persons with disabilities.
The call was made by Hajiya Arafat Salami, parent of a person with autism during the 2022 International Day for Persons with Autism in Abuja. The event was organized by Ike Foundation for Autism (IFA).
The World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) is a day set aside by the United Nations for nationals and groups to focus attention towards and create awareness on the obstacles that people with autism face every day.
As a major global health issue, autism needs to gain more understanding. Each year, World Autism Awareness Day is celebrated on April 2 globally to spread awareness about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental disorder that distorts the communication and social interaction skills of a person.
The symptoms of ASD can be detected before a child reaches the age of three years old, and the disorder is mainly caused by genetics and biological differences in brain development.
However, the disorder can be effectively dealt with if the patient or parents seek medical help as soon as possible after the diagnosis.
In celebrating this year’s World Autism Awareness Day with the theme: ‘Inclusion in the Workplace’, Hajiya Arafat Salami explained the need for awareness in the workplace.
She explained that the workplace is made up of parents, relatives, neighbors and so on who have direct and indirect impact in the upbringing and support for persons with autism.
These persons belong to the society that stigmatize and disenfranchise parents and persons with autism, they also are policy makers and policy implementers that affect persons with autism.
Hajiya Salami advised parents on how to succeed with their kids with autism
“Talking about the success, success is achieved through persistence and consistency. When you consistently pursue your goal, you will achieve your goal and aspiration.
I don’t want to sound as if am gloating, you could still work hard with a target and still not achieve the desired result. We are grateful to God that we sought help and we got help, we worked and achieved success.
“To achieve success, we took it one step at a time. At a point the only prayer I had was for him to be toilet trained, for him to use the toilet on his own. It was a big issue for us.
So, we focused on that one alone and we achieved it. Then we moved to another step, there was a time he couldn’t walk at all, we focused on that, we got help and he started walking. When he started walking, his steps were not okay, he would walk zigzag, therapy came through and he was able to maintain a good gaze.
We then focused on speech, he was not verbal, we did audiology test on him, we know he can hear so we focused on that and we are happy we got the result.
“At each point we focused on specifics, we are always addressing specific issues we feel are challenging. So, I want to encourage mothers and parents of persons with autism, it’s a spectrum and we don’t know the level your child is, don’t give up.
“Focus on one thing at a time. Celebrate any small success because it’s the cumulation of the small success that will become a big access.
Sharing her experience on stigmatization by the community Hajiya Arafat Salami said “Talking about communities, I suffered a lot from the community, even among family members, some persons believed that my bad attitude made me have a child with autism, some think it’s a spirit, others think its witchcraft. Yet others think I went out at night, I am a journalist, I work at night.