There was a time in America when children that had autism were described as “retarded”. Thanks to the efforts of people like Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the “r” word has become politically incorrect. Ms. Shriver established the Special Olympics in 1968, which helped to create a more favorable image of people with disabilities. However, it was not until the passage of the Individuals with Disability Act in 1989 that formal programs for persons with disabilities were established.
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/08/spread-word.html
There
are a variety of conditions that would be considered “disabilities”, but the
most common ones are Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism. Regardless of
the specific malady, though, individuals with mental (and sometimes physical)
disabilities were considered “retarded” in the past, and some still are today.
To make things a little more confusing, you need to understand that there are FIVE different types of autism:
1 –
Classical autism
2 –
Asperser’s Syndrome
3-
Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD-NOS)
4 –
Rett’s Syndrome
5 –
Childhood disintegrative disorder.
Jodi
Picoult is one of our favorite authors, but her stories would not be considered
“light reading” since they all deal with serious topics. Her 2010 novel, “House
Rules”, centered on a young man who had Asperger’s.
Being afflicted with Asperger’s is not necessarily a bad
thing, since the individual involved can still accomplish amazing things. Two
of the individuals that have the disease are well known to the public.
One of them is Greta Thunberg, who started sitting outside the
Swedish Parliament on Friday afternoons when she was 15 years old to call
attention to the dangers of global warming.
In 2019, she was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
The other person that you will recognize just hosted Saturday Night Live.
His name is Elon Musk.
Born in South Africa in 1971, he later moved to Canada, where
he married a Canadian singer known by the stage name of Grime.
His business career has been VERY busy.
At the ago of 24, he and his brother started a company called
, which was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. The same year, he founded
a company called ban x.com , which later became PayPal, which sold to eBay in
2002 for $1.5 billion.
In 2002, he founded Space X, which recently started sending
astronauts into space.
In 2005, he joined the electric car company Tesla as chairman
and product architect.
In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, which was eventually merged to Tesla to become Tesla Energy.
In 2015, he founded OpenAI, a company that promotes artificial
intelligence.
In 2016, he started Neuralink, a company that focuses on
brain-computer interfacing.
The same year, he started The Boring Company, a tunnel
construction company.
As of May 8 of this year, he is worth $183.9 billion, just
below Jeff Bezos, who is worth $200 billion.
For a retarded kid, I think he’s done pretty well.
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