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National Autistic versus Autism Society

longman

I'm sure I've raised this before, but cannot find where. When I search NAS on google I come up with lots more links to the National Autism Society. Has anyone else noticed this?

This is Mencap at (mencap org autism*)  They have a page on autism with a few links, but nothing remotely comparable with NAS.

But consider this, if unchallenged Mencap could go around with collection boxes labelled National Autism Society and many people might think they were giving to NAS.

Has anyone tried using this service?

Is it fair to use a confusing organisatiion title like this - trades descriptions act and all that?

*on Random's advice I've deleted the link less it improve its rating

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Longman's original point, as he acknowldged, was mistaken as the site he found wasn't real. The real Mencap site doesn't have a huge amount about autism but it does have links that direct people back to NAS. If you search for autism in google then the NAS site gets very good rankings. There is a long standing grumble that NAS doesn't represent adults as well as it could and I don't really have an opinion on that, I don't feel let down or abandoned but I don't need their support really.

    It was a fine idea to have a badge to identify someone with autism but there are significant issues. People would have to wear it in enough numbers for other people to start to recognise what it means. I don't feel that there are enough people with autism who want to be marked out like that. Mostly, I believe, we want to go incognito and not to draw attention to the fact. Alternatively, NAS would have to give it enough publicity but this is an enormous and expensive thing to do and the benefits would be marginal, the incidents when it would help are infrequent but traumatic but the educational task to get through to the likes of a night club bouncer is probably beyond the wit of man. Station porters could be made aware of people with learning difficulties or autism and that is a task that NAS could, I would have thought, address. The discussion prompted me to think about wearing an autism awareness badge and I'm afraid that I haven't yet decided to take that particular plunge - I may do in due course. 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Longman's original point, as he acknowldged, was mistaken as the site he found wasn't real. The real Mencap site doesn't have a huge amount about autism but it does have links that direct people back to NAS. If you search for autism in google then the NAS site gets very good rankings. There is a long standing grumble that NAS doesn't represent adults as well as it could and I don't really have an opinion on that, I don't feel let down or abandoned but I don't need their support really.

    It was a fine idea to have a badge to identify someone with autism but there are significant issues. People would have to wear it in enough numbers for other people to start to recognise what it means. I don't feel that there are enough people with autism who want to be marked out like that. Mostly, I believe, we want to go incognito and not to draw attention to the fact. Alternatively, NAS would have to give it enough publicity but this is an enormous and expensive thing to do and the benefits would be marginal, the incidents when it would help are infrequent but traumatic but the educational task to get through to the likes of a night club bouncer is probably beyond the wit of man. Station porters could be made aware of people with learning difficulties or autism and that is a task that NAS could, I would have thought, address. The discussion prompted me to think about wearing an autism awareness badge and I'm afraid that I haven't yet decided to take that particular plunge - I may do in due course. 

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