As with all disorders that people do not understand, myths and claims are made out of ignorance and become apart of urban legend that confuses the public and puts misinformation out there that could detrimental to the parent looking for an answer to their dilemma. Autism is a disease with an unknown cause and an unknown cure. This mysterious mental disorder is something for parents to be frightened about and the myths that pop up on the internet or in conversation does not help the placate the emotions of the parent who is facing life with an autistic child.



One of the myths of autism is that autism is caused by an uncaring or distant parent. This is an awful presumption that should be stifled when ever heard. Autism is a neurological brain disorder that makes the child have anti-social or poor social habits. The environment or relationship between mother and child has nothing to do with the cause of the disease. The relationship with a distant mother may only the hinder the timeliness of a diagnosis because she was not paying attention to the symptoms, but the assumption that the relationship is the cause of the disease is false.

Another myth that has circulated is that autistic children and idiot savants are the same thing. Amazing feats of memorization or counting has been seen in very few autistic children. Most autistic children fixate on a subject or a genre and become experts in it, but others have no abilities at all. The fixation may be root of the myth and the very few that exhibit these incredible mental powers are often exploited and have been shown to wide audiences. The Tom Cruise movie 'Rain Man' centered on a autistic adult with counting prowess and this could be where the public passes on this myth.

A myth brought on by marketers and promoters of nutritional supplements is the idea that special diets and nutritional supplements can cure autism. This may be great if you are a parent that is desperately searching for something that will help their kid, but the only thing a special diet or nutritional supplement will do for the child is to make them a healthier autistic child. The autism will still be there, but as with every human, the nutritional supplements and diet will only make the autistic child healthy and not cure the neurological imbalance the exists.

Another sad myth is that children with autism will never have the comfort of human relationships. This is completely false. Autistic children just communicate differently than others. They may feel love and hate but they cannot display the emotion as the rest of society would expect it to be shared. Autistic adults have fell in love, gotten married and even have had a series of successful relationships as single adults. Autistic couples are common with high functioning autism and they more than any one else understands the pain of not being able to communicate the emotion they are feeling.

If you hear somebody spreading these myths around, confront them and set them straight. These kinds of myths dismantle what parents, teachers, and medical professionals have been trying to build for years and that is a true understanding of autism. Such falsehoods can shake the resolve of parents who have autistic children and destroy hopes of finding the cause and a cure. The parents are desperate to find both and these myths only dump on their dreams.