Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. A Blogger Collaboration post

I'm a little late to the party but since this is for a good cause I decided to contribute anyway.

A couple of years ago we had an 18-year old boy working with us in the film archive for two months. We pride ourselves of being an open minded work place (one of the archivists suffers from Cerebral Palsy) and to be working with us turned out great for him. Some of the job functions are rather repititive and systematised and furthermore we are a happy and caring bunch of people who want all our coworkers to feel at home. He suffered from Aspergers Syndrome and wanted to see if he would eventually be able to master some kind of job position suited for him. When he left us he expressed that being with us had made him decide to apply for a dedicated high school that specialises in working with youths suffering from Aspergers. Us being open minded helped him on his way and that is why autism awareness is important - if we "healthy" people stay open minded we are more likely to help the "less healthy" in finding something that is meaningful to them and will make their life a little less difficult.

Since blue has been chosen as the colour to signify autism awareness nail bloggers are donning their blues to support the cause.

I've seen Reciprocal Sponge Gradient manis floating around on nail blogs and thought I'd try it but just do it a little differently. Therefore my tape stripes are asymmetrical but I think they ended up being only so-so:

I've had some Kiko's sitting in my untried drawer and three of them were blue so the decicsion on which polish brand to use for this mani was an easy one to make.

 

I apologise for the rather poorly clean-up. I'd forgotten to wrap up my fingers so I ended up with nail polish all over - and it being highly pigmented blues you can imagine how easy clean-up actually was :P

Kiko 339 Cornflower, Kiko 385 Pastel Blue, Kiko 337 Periwinkle Violet.

Autism Facts:
Autism Spectrum Disorder ASD is a range of neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restrictive, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior.  Autistic Disorder sometimes referred to as autism is the most severe form of ASD while other conditions along the spectrum include a milder form known as Asperger Syndrome.

Although ASD varies significantly in character and severity it occurs in all ethnic and socioeconomic groups and affects every age group.

Males are four times more likely to develop ASD than females

Some common signs of ASD are:
Focusing on one item and excluding all others for prolonged periods of time

Become both withdrawn and indifferent to social interaction

Failure to respond to one's name or make eye contact

Many children follow patterns of twirling, rocking and even destructive behavior such as banging their head or biting.

Children with characteristics of ASD may also have conditions such as epileptic seizures, Tourette's Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, and Fragile X Syndrome which causes mental retardation.

Because ASD varies in severity and symptoms it is not uncommon for it to go on unrecognized.

Currently scientists do not know exactly causes ASD although it is likely that both genetics and environment do play a role.

Some therapies and treatments have helped with the severity of symptoms in some individuals, sometimes symptoms improve with age, but as of right now there is no cure for ASD.

To support Autism Awareness Month some of my fellow bloggers have banded together to get the word out and Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness!