April = Autism Awareness Month

Quick note just to remind everyone that it is Autism Awareness Month.

Your support of the MADKAP initiative to generate scholarship funds for KAP has been fantastic.  Incredibly generous gifts have been given - some so generous and unexpected from some of you that it's been both stunningly humbling and wholly energizing.  Thank you isn't sufficient, but thank you.  Let's keep it going and also share the word with others....we can undoubtedly hit the $25K mark and see to it that WKU matches our efforts.

Also, in terms of literally taking the KAP name to the streets, we are now in the final fortnight of training for the first 1/2 marathon (Country Music in Nashville - 4/27).  The long weekend runs have been completed, the hard tempo work contributed, and a couple of pesky minor injuries linger.  It's time for some race miles cloaked in the KAP colors.

A few quick points re: autism given the aforementioned month:

--autism now affects one (1) out of 88 children, a figure that increases in concentration upon seemingly every update

--there are no medical tests for autism; diagnosis is solely behavioral.  This accounts for the extreme age range of initial diagnoses

--autism affects what most of us know to be the normal development of the brain and can affect not only behavior but communication skills, pragmatic language use, and social interactions

--autism is a spectrum disorder; there is a wide range of difference in how it manifests and I'll speak to this more in a future article

Thank you again everyone.  We are collectively making a difference.