At some point in our lives, we have encountered or seen someone with a disability but it’s not every day that we really get to get a feel of how it really is to live with or interact with someone with a disability.

Before we talked to Omer, I, along with, I’m sure, many other people in the class had a couple of assumptions of what it was like to be around people with autism. So it was definitely great for us to get to ask some questions and clarify any confusion we had on the matter.

Omer has a 7-year old cousin with autism. He described his cousin as being very shy and usually hard to interact with, mentioning a few times about how in most cases, if you tried to say hi to him, he wouldn’t respond back. Omer mentions about how people with autism tend to find it harder to pick up on social cues which is part of the reason why they don’t open up to strangers easily and prefer to stay inside, what Omer describes as their own ‘little bubble’.

He gave an example of what a normal day would look like with his cousin, saying how first off, they would have breakfast, then his cousin would go attend a therapy session then he would come back home for a while and then go to yet another therapy session.

From what he’s explained about his cousin so far, some might assume that Omer might not have a very good relationship with his cousin, but it’s actually the opposite! He says that over the years, from watching his Aunt and Uncle interact with his cousin, he has learned that in order to get along with his cousin, he would have to be more gentle and more observant, making sure that the things he do won’t trigger any panic or make his cousin feel uncomfortable. This is a very important thing that people should know and it’s very helpful in case you ever interact with someone with autism.

speaking on a more general level about the way the world feels about people with autism, Omer points out about how these days, especially among kids and teenagers, people use the word ‘autistic’ to describe someone negatively. He says that because of this, he feels like society as ‘ruined’ the word by using this negative comparison. This shows how although there may be many people throughout the whole world that do accept and treat people with disabilities the way they should be treated, there are some people still hold an unreasonable distaste for them.

We should all just learn to take a step forward and accept every different person for who they are.