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As some of you know, April is Autism Acceptance Month , dedicated to sharing information, support, and positivity regarding autism. It is also a time when it is especially important to fight messages of fear and despair, which go into hyperdrive this month.

In the spirit of inclusion and support, let’s work hard this month to let the Autistic community know that Wikihow cares and is here for them/us!

So: what can we at WikiHow do to keep things supportive and educational? Editing goals? New, helpful articles? Sharing existing articles on social media? Let’s hear your feedback and set some goals for a positive, productive April!

Not a member of the Autism Project? Feel free to join  and help out! Autistic people and allies are always welcome.

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Ugh, sounds like that driver had serious road rage issues. I’m sorry to hear that this happened.

Let’s set some goals for creating new articles then!

@DaniFree @McDonalds1 @WarriorOfEden @XxVxX @Sarah @Clara1276 @AllyGregory @HumanBeing @EmmaStatler

I’m tagging you all because I’d love to hear your ideas.

Let’s create some new articles this April. Put them in the Autism Spectrum category, or one of its subcategories, and we can work together to build them up and make them fab.

What would be a reasonable goal? 5 new articles? 10?

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5 would be good as a starter for now, before increasing it gradually as we go.

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I agree with 5. That seems reasonable, and we can always increase it.

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There’s currently no way to do that on the site, though you can do it by e-mailing the user you want to send the message to using wikiHow’s e-mailing system. The only prerequisite for this is that both of you have an e-mail address you can access.

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All right, let’s do it! Our 1st goal is 5 new articles in the week of April!

We can search “autism” and “autistic” to get topic suggestions, as shown here . We also have suggestions on this thread:

Suggestions so far:

Teach an Autistic Person Road Safety

Teach an Autistic Person Independence

Teach Morals to Autistic People (shortened from original; does anyone have a better wording suggestion?)

Some suggestions on my part:

Be Confident as an Autistic Person

Interview an Autistic Person (as in, for a newspaper or something)

Find More Autistic Friends (for autistic people who need community)

Detect Autism in Teens

Raise an Autistic Person’s Self Esteem

Protect Autistic Children from Bullying

Recognize Stress in Autistic people (i.e., so loved ones can notice an oncoming meltdown/shutdown and help out)

Comfort an Autistic Person

Some therapies I haven’t done, but have heard good things about:

Use RDI for Autism

Use Floortime for Autism

Use RPM for Autism

If you write a new article, you can post a link to the thread! That way, we can build off of each other’s ideas and share our thoughts. If all you can write is a stub, or if you need advice, or if you just want to see the article built up through collaboration, you can get help from the community.

Let the edits begin!

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Here’s one I wrote yesterday: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-an-Autistic-Child-on-Vacation

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@XxVxX What a great article! It’s such an important topic, and I’m really happy to see this article. I bet it will help a lot of people.

I tried my hand at an expansion:  http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Take-an-Autistic-Child-on-Vacation&diff=19904236&oldid=19903860

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@WarriorOfEden Don’t feel the need to commit to anything you can’t handle! Your mental health comes first. If you have time, that’s great, and if not, that’s okay.

Something I do sometimes is drafting WikiHow articles in a .txt document. This way, I can edit in short bursts until I feel that it’s ready to post. Another option is to write as much as you can, post it, then link it here and ask for other people to help expand it.

Whenever an article is created, WikiVisual adds it to a list of articles that need illustrations. Your article will go on the list, and an artist or photographer will create images for you. I’d offer to draw the pictures myself, but I’m not good at streets and stuff, so I think WikiVisual is your best option.

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@MissLunaRose it looks great, thank you!

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Hey this is the Autism Project not the Chat Project I know that @Annunciated is an autism facilitator but I also know that she isn’t very active on wikiHow. Maybe I should tell her about it

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It’s the first day of April, and we are 1/5 of the way towards our goal of 5 new articles!

  1. wikihow.com/Take-an-Autistic-Child-on-Vacation

We’re on a great start towards a productive and helpful Autism Acceptance Month. If we can hit 5 articles, our goal will raise to 10. Let’s see how much we can do as a team to help autistic people and loved ones this month!

Also, I thought you all might like to see this official wikiHow tumblr post on autism .:slight_smile:

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How about this one?:  https://www.wikihow.com/Take-an-Autistic-Child-to-a-Party

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@McDonalds1 it looks good! I did a few minor edits.

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Cool! We’ve just gotta wait for MissLunaRose’s review.

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Oh my, am I notorious now?

Anyhow, I’m super excited that you put the article together! It’s a great subject, and I think it’s incredibly important to consider and address autistic children’s anxieties about socializing. I don’t have many of those myself, but a lot of other autistic people do, and it’s so important to support them. I’m really glad to read your unique perspective on the issue.

I remember going to parties as a little autistic girl… I liked having friends, but I’d also get overwhelmed and need to leave early sometimes! I added a bit of info based on personal experience there, and broke it into 2 parts.  wikihow.com/index.php?title=Take-an-Autistic-Child-to-a-Party&diff=19934942&oldid=19934125

I’m so surprised and excited that we have 2 articles already by April 1st! This is amazing, and I’m thrilled to be working with such thoughtful and motivated people.

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I am on vacation but when I get back home I can help write some more articles! Congrats on having done so much already!

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Hi,

I am not a member of this project, however I wanted to ask and suggest an article if it is not done already. There are many countries where Autism is not taken as seriously to give the child any treatment or other facilities that they get otherwise. (I am sorry, I am not aware of all the counseling they might be given).Can you create an article that addresses parents to

  • Understand that their child has autism
  • Take necessary care
  • Understand how it impacts their education, relating with others, bonding and how to understand their reaction.

Some families wont actually acknowledge the child’s need for treatment as long as it is not affecting the child in terms of regular needs. So to give parents ample reason to take their child’s autism seriously, I thought I’d reach out to this group. Let me know if such an approach is already addressed in one of the articles.

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Hmm. Maybe something like “How to Understand Your Autistic Child”?

Part of this might be covered by “How to Treat Autism,” which is kind of a stub and could use expanding. (I can get on that, and other editors’ help would be great too.)

We have “How to Relate to an Autistic Person,” but this is focused on autistic teens/adults.

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To update this list…

  1. https://www.wikihow.com/Take-an-Autistic-Child-on-Vacation
  2. https://www.wikihow.com/Take-an-Autistic-Child-to-a-Party