TODAY is the last day of April and so marks the end of Autism Awareness Month, but for those living with the condition, the challenges – and benefits – continue all year round.

Autism can be an unusual attribute for a person to live with and Mulleraterong Centre chief executive, Annette Read was quick to point out that their support work wasn’t just about dealing with the very broad range of expressions observed to form a diagnosis, but educating the wider community to understand the ability of people to think in radically unconventional ways can be a great asset for us all.

“Autism is just part of our everyday life,” she said.

“There are a large number of people in the population who are on the autism spectrum and they can display all sorts of behaviours.

“There are so many different types of autism.

“The fact is that people with autism just think differently. Things that are important to us are not to them and things that are important to them are sometimes not to us.”

Ms Read said that since “the world is made up of people who think differently” anyway, it might be easier for the community to accept and engage with those with autism if that ‘standard’ acceptance is simply expanded to understand the offbeat perspective those with autism have.

It can be the priorities they have, it can be difficulties with social interaction, and it can be the level of or filtering of the ‘data’ their senses receive.

A common way this manifests for someone with autism is the amplification or complexity of background noise which can overwhelm them.

Ms Read told The Spectator the amount of noise that people with autism “have in their heads” can often not be ignored the way many people can ‘tune out’; they are ‘wired’ to try to notice everything.

“If you think about your environment right now, you might be hearing emails coming in, you might be hearing somebody tapping on a keyboard or a phone ringing or door closing,” she said.

“Those sorts of noises to somebody with autism can be overloading.”

Being aware of the sensory sensitivities of those with autism is one of five general tips to accommodate your friend or loved one, according to the USA-based Kids Included Together.

They also suggest asking questions and giving them time to answer, being prepared for interruptions and tangents, and helping them feel safe by giving them advance warning about any changes to their routine.

The most important rule is to approach with kindness and acceptance.

“People with autism are challenged with learning about us, about learning to deal with and communicate with people who don't have autism,” Ms Read said.

“Because just as you or I might not understand somebody with autism, or any other disability, they (also) have to deal with us in our world.”

Ms Read said Mulleraterong provides support services, including individualised supports for a wide variety of disabilities, including autism.

“We are dedicated to providing supports that empower people with disabilities, further their independence and enhance their belonging within the community, and respect for human rights is embedded in our everyday practices,” she said.

“Our vision is to promote the advancement of accessible and inclusive communities which respect and value all of its members, including those with autism.”

One of the tools Mulleraterong has used for its training of staff for understanding autism is the 2010 biographical TV movie, Temple Grandin.

“Temple Grandin is a world-renowned stock handling expert - and I mean world-renowned - and it all came about because of her autism,” Ms Read said.

“It's not that that person has a disability, it's about having a different set of abilities and some of the greatest minds in the world are autistic.

“The message that we need to get through to people who might have prejudices about people with disabilities - and in this case, autism - they can be geniuses.”

In conjunction with her own life experience of sensory responses to being hugged, and acute visual watchfulness of cattle, Professor Grandin began research on their behaviour during handling and ended up envisioning a signature curved corral design, initially dismissed by the farming industry, that resulted in a range of positive outcomes, both in economic terms and animal welfare before slaughter.

“I’m a total visual thinker. I think completely in pictures,” she said.

“Animals are sensory-based visual thinkers, too. They do not think in words.”

The design was so revolutionary in terms of understanding the motivations of cattle movement and keeping the stock calm that more than half of cattle in the USA are now handled in this way.

Ms Read said she was not unaware that using the movie for her staff in a town like Hamilton is an apt crossover to cover two very distinct subjects.

“Because we are in a rural area with lots of people who work with stock, it's quite a good movie, from that point of view,” she said.

“It's not just all about autism.”

Prof Grandin has been to Australia multiple times to demonstrate her design and has also been a widely sought-after speaker on autism, offering her own subcategorisation of the condition.

“I have observed that there are three specialised autistic/Asperger cognitive types,” she said.

“They are; (i) visual thinkers such as I who are often poor at algebra, (ii) pattern thinkers such as (English savant) Daniel Tammet who excel in maths and music but may have problems with reading or writing composition, and (iii) verbal specialists who are good at talking and writing but they lack visual skills.”

Prof Grandin said she was able to describe her thinking as “similar to an internet search engine, set to locate photos”.

“All my thoughts are in photo-realistic pictures, which flash up on the computer monitor in my imagination,” she said.

“Words just narrate the picture.

“When I design livestock facilities, I can test run the equipment in my imagination, similar to a virtual reality computer program.

“I did not know that this was a special skill until I started interviewing other people about how they think. I was surprised to discover that the other non-autistic equipment designers could not do full motion test runs of equipment in their minds.”

But not every person with autism is a world-renowned professor, and the challenges thrown up by those with it can have a deep impact on the daily life of their family and friends.

Ms Read said “the real champions are parents who have children with autism” and was grateful for the support they could offer at the Centre.

“They (parents) have to learn about autism ... they get a crash course,” she said.

“We work with families to do the best for the individual with autism, or any other disability, and we want to include them to a greater degree as possible into the community and into their own lives to empower them to do as much as they can.

“The behaviours that come with autism are so different. It's not something that you can capture in a half-page article.”

Up until a few years ago, autism was thought to affect around one in 100 people in Australia, but due to the complexities of diagnosis and growing familiarity with it, along with data from the USA, Canada and locally, that figure was revised to one in 70 in 2018.

Ms Read said she was just glad that Autism Awareness Month helped people gain a greater understanding of the condition.

“For every autistic mind, there (are) different rules, a different set of circumstances, just as there is for every human being,” she said.

“The big message is that people with autism are not lesser, they are just different.”

More information about autism can be found at autismawareness.com.au and autismspectrum.org.au.