Through A Pen, Communication Studies UMM Lecturer Invites People to Recognize Autism

Writing becomes a powerful weapon to spread positive and negative things. This was realized by Frida Kusumastuti. The lecturer of Communication Science Study Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) incorporated in Sahabat Autisma Malang (SAMA) since 2012 used his ability in the world of communication to help his community open discussion spaces to socialization related to autism in the community.

"I help the SAME community in the field of publication to the media and write a press release," she said, Monday (7/30).

Furthermore Frida said, her enthusiasm as an autistic activist emerged from her love from her eldest child.

WRL, who is 22 years old, is the Frida’s first child who was born with special features. Initially, the woman who had just earned a doctorate in Social and Political Sciences had made various efforts to heal her child who was diagnosed as 'deaf' by a doctor.

At the age of two, Frida learned that WRL did not suffer from deafness but autism. She also began to increase her knowledge about this feature while starting to pour out his heart through the writings on her micro blog. Unexpectedly, the writings received an appreciation from the Healthy Internet Movement, which was run by Indonesian ICT Partnership Association or ICT Watch. Frida was awarded the Bronze in 2011.

This achievement spurred Frida to continue to be active in the SAMA community with parents of autistic children with various professional backgrounds such as teachers to doctors. They spread the spirit together and share experiences to public education related to autism.

“Misalnya pendidikan masyarakat tentang autisme dan tentang keluarga autisme. Sharingnya beragam dalam menghadapi anak autisme,” jelasnya.

"For example public education about autism and about autism families. The sharing is diverse in dealing with autistic children, "he explained.

Not only received an award, Frida's writing also received a lot of appreciation from readers. Many readers want the blog posts to be a book. Then, Frida decided to publish her book entitled, The Power Behind Autism followed by her second book Learning as a Human. The contents are not far from their daily activities in interacting with their eldest son and other people.

"I wrote the first blog as an outpouring of a mother's heart and told about my child whose hobby was painting. There is a lot of input from my readers to make it a book," said the woman who had been the Chair of the Festival of Autistic Children in the World Autism Care Day which was celebrated every April 2.