Mirror the Autistic silence

When John Powell said "Communication works for those who work at it", he surely didn't have in mind the section of people who cannot work at it even if they tried — the 'autistics'.

Autistics are individuals with a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication. It affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize.

To most of us who are so socially connected that we start each day by updating our Facebook status followed by a tweet, it might be very difficult to comprehend how it feels to be devoid of social interaction.

Therefore, as a noble fund-raising initiative, SapientNitro and Autism Charities are joining forces in more than 40 countries to launch a global campaign urging the world's 4.5 billion social media users to shutdown their networks just for one day on 1 November 2010. For that one day, people around the world are encouraged to go without Facebook or Twitter.

In the month leading up to Communication Shutdown (1 October to 1 November) people can make a donation to receive a CHAPP (charity app) which will show others that they have chosen to shut down by way of status updates, tweets and profile pictures. CHAPP is available on the campaign website www.communicationshutdown.org. and will serves as a badge of solidarity for those affected by autism, creating a true sense of empathy towards them.

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