A Tweet's-Worth About Your Child

"If you were to craft a single message about autism spectrum disorders for the general public in 100 words or less, what would it be?" That's the challenge my colleague on the About.com Autism site, Lisa Jo Rudy, has put before her readers, and if you have some thoughts about creating a useful sound byte for that sprawling diagnosis, share your suggestions in the comments to her post. I suspect, though, that coming up with a succinct description in this case would be nowhere near as hard as coming up with something everyone can agree on.

In these Twittering times, it may be that even 100 words would be too long to capture the public attention span. A hundred and forty characters is more like it. Of course, any disability -- and certainly, any child! -- is too complex to be captured completely in a short space of words. But we're all capable, like many a child on the autism spectrum, of talking about these obsessed-over diagnoses in far greater detail than our listeners care to absorb. It's worth thinking about paring the message down to its essentials, and a Twitter tweet's worth is an interestingly tiny place to start.

So, stepping up from Lisa's challenge, I make this one to you: How would you describe your child's disability in 140 characters or less? I've been playing around with this a little, and for my daughter I'd say "Language delays, mostly in social language now -- body language, expressions, wordplay, sarcasm. Just say what you mean, and be nice." For my son, I came up with: "Fetal alcohol effects = mismatch between chronological age and emotional maturity. Expect poor judgment, impulsivity, silliness, sweetness." Share your own tweet-sized diagnosis descriptions in the comments.

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