Portrayal of Autistics

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Dug up a book at the local library: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird_(Erskine_novel)

Reading this book made me mad because first thing I always do with books is check author background. The lady apparently has no idea what it is like to be autistic, as she is some . The dialogue in the book is mismatched in order to show that she is autistic, but of any autistic I know, this is not how I speak, nor how thoughts are put into words.

I feel as though, as soon as someone writes these things, they should at least have some experience, nor does the premise of it.

She's a different person than you, of course she'll think, act, and talk differently than you. All Autistics are different too.

My issue is the media's portrayal of Autistics in some of their coverage. The biggest issue I've had is the fact that they had to point out that the Sandy Hook gunman had AS and their initial coverage acted like that is the reason he did what he did. I know later that they sighted other issues, but it seriously seemed like that they expected people to assume that all of his behaviors were indicative of his AS. The truth was is that while he had a diagnosis of AS, there were other serious issues that he seemed to have that accompanied the AS. Not every AS person is obsessed with guns, only communicate by email with their mother, anorexic, and so on. It's just the lay people on CNN and their uneducated assumptions about AS people. There are so many facets of people with AS and like everyone else in the world, there are no two alike.

Don't know what to say as I haven't read it. I'm planning on writing a fictional story about an autistic boy based on me. But he's going to have perceptions that I don't really have. I wonder now if it's a bad idea to write about an autistic character that way. Maybe I'll need to write a disclaimer prolog about what's fact and what's fiction regarding his abilities.