April is autism awareness month and there is something you should avoid. The puzzle piece.

“The puzzle piece as a symbol for autism was originally used by the National Autism Society in the UK in 1963” (1). This symbol was quickly used by Autism Speaks.

Autism Speaks is a hateful group that has been ‘looking for a cure for autism’ as well as the fact that “Autism Speaks has only 1 autistic person out of a total of 28 individuals on its Board of Directors. By contrast, 23 out of 28 board members represent major corporations…” (2)

The puzzle piece amplifies the idea that there is something wrong or missing from autistic individuals and a great number of people with autism feel that the puzzle piece should be gone for good.

As a replacement, a new symbol was introduced. First used in 2005, and created by people with autism, the rainbow infinity has been used as a replacement for the problematic puzzle (3).

“Autism is not a tragedy, ignorance is the tragedy.”

1

Autism no puzzle, nothing wrong with us

2
https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AutismSpeaksFlyer2020.pdf

3
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/awareness-pride-evolution-autism-symbols-from-1963-amber#:~:text=Created%20by%20neurodiversity%20advocates%2C%20the,has%20become%20widespread%20and%20beloved.