Good afternoon, all ☺ Today in one of my middle school classes we had the age old discussion about my deep dislike of the word "retarded". Ugh... I even despise typing it... Below is a good depiction of how I feel about it that I found on Pinterest, gold mine of all amazing visual nuggets:
I just cannot understand why kids --and some adults-- love to use that word when clearly there are sooooo many other words that can express what they want to say so much better! Hopefully this image will encourage people to do just that. And perhaps this post will encourage people to see that "cognitively impaired" individuals among us are not as disabled as they seem and are just, as I have been trying to say for a while now, differently able than the rest of us.
Ben is doubtlessly the star of this blog, as it is dedicated to autism awareness ☺ But today, I would like to make him the main author as well.
What follows is a "storybook" illustrated by Benjamin in the Winter of 2008, when he was 13 years old. He had such a great time drawing the pictures and told me the story as he drew...
This is the tale of the Little Dinosaurs...
One little dinosaur listening to music!
Two little dinosaurs going surfing!
Three little dinosaurs going skate boarding!
Four little dinosaurs playing their instruments!
Five little dinosaurs taking a moon light walk!
Six little dinosaurs playing with their toys!
Seven little dinosaurs going on a train ride!
Eight little dinosaurs enjoying the seaside!
Nine little dinosaurs playing with their legos!
Ten little dinosaurs grooving to their music!
THE END
I hope you will agree that Ben is definite more than his autism, he is an artist ☺ ... and certainly not "retarded", that loathsome word...
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