Autism Awareness Day now has a different meaning for me than it did back then. In those early years I just hoped that people would know what autism was so that I didn't always have to explain my boys' differences to them. It evolved into wanting people to understand that our boys were different, but not less. Then, it was wanting acceptance so that they would be accepted into the rest of society and have access to the same things their peers had. Now I think it's about shaking the world up to realize that even if autism has not yet entered their own perfect bubble of a life, at this increased rate of prevalence, it will very soon.

Raising a child is hard, and raising a child with special needs has even greater challenges that often leave parents feeling fatigued and depleted. Yet every day we find renewed energy and we continue to push forward and advocate for our children who cannot advocate for themselves. So when I tell you "I'm fine," it can mean a lot of things.

"84 per cent of people with autism feel that people judge them as strange." This video is trying to change that.

When my son was a toddler, I remember a few events that I declined to attend simply because it was too complicated -- I just didn't have it in me. Looking back at the earlier years, I realize just how little people new about my son and his autism. I think our experience would have been different had others been more aware.

As important as research is, I truly don't believe this should be the number one priority when discussing how to improve the lives of people with autism. How is research helping the autistic individuals living in our society today? The ones that are stigmatized for who they are; the children who are on waiting lists for government funded therapy that unfortunately never comes and whose parents are forced to go privately, depleting finances at an astounding rate. They are not part of an incomplete puzzle. They are here, they are whole and they are deserving of equal opportunities.