“If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” — Dr. Stephen Shore, professor, Adelphi University.

Every April, Autism Speaks celebrates World Autism Month, beginning with the United Nations-sanctioned World Autism Awareness Day on April 2.

What the esteemed professor means in the quote above is that like snowflakes (and humans!), no two people with autism are alike.

Autism or autism spectrum, as some people refer to it, includes five major types:

• Asperger’s syndrome (now formally referred to as Level 1 autism by medical professionals)
• Rett syndrome
• Childhood disintegrative disorder (also known as Heller’s syndrome)
• Kanner’s syndrome
• Pervasive development disorder

Within all the above diagnoses, however, are a range of variables. Otismo, a developer of educational resources for the autistic community, explains that a diagnosis of autism is generally accepted if a child — or adult — displays difficulty in two of three areas: social interaction, communication and exhibiting recurrent behavior.

At Flatrock, many of our residents are living with one of these forms of autism, and our team works every day to offer our full support, so each of them can live their live as fully and independently as possible.

While every person with autism is different, with different abilities, goals and preferences, they all have one thing in common: the right to be respected and accepted.