Why so blue? National Autism Association and Neon 'Autism SOS'

The 'Autism SOS' campaign launched on April 2nd, 2019 during world autism awareness day. In a matter of hours, groups of autistic people and allies were re-tweeting and remarking on the offensiveness of the entirely blue depressing posters.

I also had a similar gut reaction upon viewing the dreary poster. I responded with a tweet and a gif saying "Is this from the 80/90's? You know back when we thought acid rain and vaccines caused the tragedy of autism in boys only."

 I observed similar feelings on this poster as well. Imagine my shock when I went looking the campaign up and found out it had more versions of the poster.

I can see what they are doing here. They are taking advantage of parents fear of the unknown. Of course, it would be important to have your child diagnosed as quickly as possible. That way they can avoid a lifetime of feeling like they did something wrong. However, this poster cites fear and negative response.

Depicting a little baby trapped in a bottle and surrounded by the blue 'wave of autism' alongside the words "Autism SOS" and calling for the need to have an early screening makes it seem like a call back to the days when people thought autism was curable.

While I agree that early diagnosis can be beneficial for a child the fear-mongering of this acronym and poster are very much unwanted.  A quote from the company says;  “Our goal with Autism SOS is to help parents identify early warning signs so they can screen and start intervention as early as possible.”

Ok, so while the language of that statement irritates me a bit, I see nothing wrong with spreading information of what autism can look like int he early ages. However, I still can't get over the overall negativity this campaign feels like. It's sad and depressing. The video they made has a slow childish music box jingle in the background. It's as if these companies don't care that one day the child will grow up and see this sort of alarming propaganda. How would you feel if you saw this knowing that you were born a certain way and everyone else thinks it's such an SOS! 

What do you think of this campaign? Do you think it's negative or wrong? What was your gut reaction upon seeing these posters?