Autism Awareness in New Zealand

Post Reply New Topic

So I was looking through a list of famous people who have actually been diagnosed with AS and I noticed there was a disproportionate number of notable aspies from New Zealand. This alone wouldn't have been enough for me to wonder if there is a different sort of view of autism in NZ, but as it happens I have a friend who is a girl from New Zealand, and she seems to know more of autism than the average person our age ( she once asked me if I have autism ( I admit I denied it at the time as I had problems with the stigma and I do not have traditional autism, I have AS and I haven't told her the truth yet, though she might already know), and once in drama when we were discussing our favorite books or something she said her favorite book or whatever the topic of discussion was was "The Curious Case of the Dog in The Midnight" or whatever that book is called, and she specifically asked me if I had read it, which I have not, and then she described it as being about a "severly autistic boy" and gave a brief synopsis of it, than told me that I should read it. So those anyone know anything about how the public views autism in New Zealand and stuff?

New Zealand is a very introvert friendly place, it is not bad to be a shy person here as being less bold is seen as more desirable.

However, it is a very conformist country, so being seen as weird is not a good thing unless you are a type of weird which is seen as socially acceptable.

I dont think it is excellent with autism awareness. I found it to be better over in the UK and Ireland. But it is better than some other countries.

So I guess its mainly just a coincidence. Thanks for the responses.

This is slightly off topic, but it is interesting none the less. I just came back from a lord of the rings marathon for a friends birthday, and there the friend from NZ which I mentioned said that she knows Peter Jackson's daughter or something from school back in NZ.