In my never ending quest to spread Autism Awareness and advocate for special needs parents I have started something that I NEED ALL your help with. I have made my feeling pretty clear about the use of the word "retard" to describe special needs children or other persons with special needs. I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I think this word is degrading,offensive, ignorant and inaccurate. You can read my original post here. Some of the responses I have received disturbed me a bit. Several people have suggested that because it is still a "medical" term then it's "ok" to use. I disagree completely. I think that it's outdated and inaccurate and we need to remove that word from medical terminology as well. There are many other words to describe persons with special needs, "retard" no longer needs to be one of them. In the state of Ohio they changed MRDD to DD this past year because it was the right thing to do. My goal is to continue pushing for that. As well as educating people about the impact that word can have on someone.
I can't explain the heartbreak I feel when people call my children "retarded". Maybe you have never had to experience that but I promise you it's not something you want to experience. I don't want ANY special needs parent to EVER have to explain to their child what that word means. It's not right and we are better then that.
So I need your help to spread the word. I started a Facebook cause and a Facebook page to gather supporters. Please join the cause and "like" the page. Please share and retweet this post as well. Our kids deserve better then this. I realize that this may be an impossible task. But I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes and know that I tried anyways. Don't you want to be able to do the same?
Again here are the links:
