What will happen to Autistic Bruneians?

This letter appeared in BB today:

Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder’ that typically lasts throughout a person’s lifetime.

People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have problems with social and communication skills.

Many people with ASD also have unusual ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to sensations.

It is part of a group of disorders known as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In most cases its causes are unknown. Today, I in I60 individuals is diagnosed with autism.

I am surprised that such a medically advanced country like Brunei doesn’t have a support system for Smarter the most well-known association for autistic individuals of Brunei.

Reading your news report in the Weekend issue I was indeed saddened to learn that a section of citizens in this peaceful and wonderful land is becoming so neglected. They don’t have funds to survive.

So what will happen to our citizens who are autistic, after that?

I hope we take serious note of this lapse in judgment that autistic people are a disabled lot.

If we were to treat them as disabled we may indeed be doing them a grave injustice.

World’s greatest Scientists Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were those suspected to have different brain activity than otherwise ordinary people.

Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton may have suffered from a type of autism, according to experts. But were they disabled people?

Researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities believe both scientists displayed signs of Asperger’s Syndrome.

Many people with Asperger’s are often regarded as being eccentric.

They sometimes lack social skills, are obsessed with complex topics and can have problems communicating.

This latest research suggests that Einstein, who is credited with developing the theory of relativity, and Newton, who discovered the laws of gravity, had these traits to varying degrees.

But look how they turned out to be!

It was only last year that Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.

With such discoveries happening in today’s world how can we ignore a section of our precious society, not even knowing what ails them?

Who knows in our small sultanate if there are a few Einsteins and Newtons among the autistic individuals that we, according to your news report even will be taking away the very place they are housed at?

Just because they don’t fall under the category of ‘disabled’ and we dont know how else to ‘categorise’ them? And we through ignorance or convenience class them as retarded people?

It’s a well-known fact that autistic people can be very intelligent and it just takes a few trained people to handle them in the way the right way.

Knowing and seeing what a lot of attention is given to patients in our own RIPAS Hospital, the untiring medical staff just wouldn’t simply give up on otherwise labeled “hopeless” cases, an that even among expatriates, children are entitle to free medical attention, I am sure there is some misunderstanding regarding this treatment toward Smarter as we understand.

Hopefully the Ministry of Health will soon come out with some good news regarding how this autistic center can survive.

The inmates are Bruneians. And it is our own countrymen who seek your help. Please help the autistic people without further delay.

Concerned Public, BSB