Autism Speaks – House of Cards – Similar?

Am I comparing Autism Speaks to the Netflix show House of Cards? Why indeed I am. I watched the series just this week and noticed similarities in the politics of one’s personal agenda that led to the underhanded, spiderwebish manipulations, the ego-stroking, strong-arming, and fear-mongering of people and their destruction, without a single thought or care. I have yet, to hear or read the countless ways Autism Speaks has actually helped families – they are a directory of support. They funnel you through all sorts of links (link farm) and can connect you to the services that have shared their link/contact information with them. They do offer tool kits, blog posts sharing the latest Autism news or scientific “breakthroughs”, and other tidbits of information that may be beneficial to people.

However, on a personal level, I honestly have not seen much evidence of their contributions in real-life scenarios.

The local chapters I’ve contacted, in the early years, were happy to direct me to therapists and tried to convince me to jump on board with their local walks and fund-raising, but they could not help me directly with our financial burden and lack of insurance. That is my experience; maybe others have had more beneficial outcomes. After my experience, I pretty much forgot about them because my time was better spent on helping my child in our everyday life. Because they could not help, I did not see a reason to support them. My little bit of money went toward used books so I could learn about Autism, Occupational and Speech therapies, sensory processing disorder, and purchasing the cheap equivalents to the items that I needed to do the therapies.

I still had very little knowledge about Autism Speaks at the time.

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