Friday, April 3, 2009

Autism Awareness!!!


This re-design was requested by Angela at Memoirs of a Chaotic Mommy. It is based on an Autism Speaks/Toys R Us advertisement that is making the rounds. Thank you for the suggestion, Angela.

12 comments:

  1. Oh wow - do you mind if I post this on my blog?

    The Asperger listserv is talking about this very thing - one mom wrote a great letter to TRU.

    I say we start a movement.

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  2. Very nice poster. It's on my blog. :)

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  3. This may be a bit off-topic, but I thought you might be interested in this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/7980526.stm
    PS: I'm afraid I can't comment on the poster, as I'm blind

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  4. Dark Angel,

    I'm not great with visual description, but I'll give this a try:

    At the top left of the poster is a black and white picture of a person seated at a computer screen, but instead of looking at the computer she is looking at the camera with a look of horror. In the top right of the poster is the headline. The top line says in large letters and quotation marks, "Awareness", then second line, still large letters but smaller, it says "Lock the doors!" third line "April is here!"

    Below the headline comes the main body of the poster, which consists of a letter to the public saying,

    "Dear Valued Guest,

    "Thank you for visiting Asperger Square 8 this April. If you have found this blog by mistake while searching for standard "awareness" statements, please stay and have a look around. See what one adult on the autism spectrum has to say about discrimination, bullying, unemployment, and other important issues.

    "This year, instead of "walking for autism," please consider walking alongside someone who is autistic. You can offer support in many ways perhaps by reducing sensory stimuli in the environment you share, or waiting patiently for the person to finish processing your questions. Or you might choose to join a cause of importance to autistic adults, such as efforts to stop the use of restraints in schools. Including us in decisions that will affect our lives and well being is good, too! And please, don't shop at Toys R Us, a company which, along with Autism Speaks, promotes a view of autistic children as heartbreaking "puzzles."

    Thank you!"

    All text in the poster is white text on a blue background.

    At the very bottom of the poster is (left, middle, right) the logo for the Autism hub; a "no pity" sign; and a picture of Bev's parrot, which is blue. There's some text in these logos but too small for me to see clearly.

    Hope this description works. Please do give me any feedback on how I can improve descriptions like this in the future for other blind people. I maintain a blog that I try to make accessible for all audiences so I'm sure I will need to write similar descriptions in the future for other things. So any tips I can learn along the way are much appreciated.

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  5. Andrea,
    Thank you for helping out with my accessibility problem. I have not been good about describing my images, but I promise to pay more attention to this in the future.

    Dark Angel,
    Thank you for commenting despite this failure, and also for the link. I am hoping to do somthing with that in the near future.

    Moi;),
    Yes, anyone who wants to is welcome to use this. Thank you for asking.

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  6. Wow! That will definitely get people thinking! While I don't disagree with Autism Awareness Day, I totally agree with what you have said on your poster about "walking alongside" someone with autism.

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  7. Bev!! Awesome redesign! It is perfect!

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  8. I signed the Autism Awareness Day wall on Facebook not realizing that Autism Speaks was behind it.

    I had assumed AA Day/Month was benign. This has given me another perspective. Thank you for educating parents.

    ps: I emailed Autism Speaks to ask if anyone on their board is autistic/has autism, but haven't heard back (I know how their board is made up - I just wanted to bug them). I guess this is something they don't "Speak" about.

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    Replies
    1. There finally, finally is someone on their board who is autistic. It took a mighty long time and they still don't fully get it but it's s step in the right direction. The way I see it is that the interests of their institution come first before the interests of those who are actually autistic.

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