World Autism Awareness Day

Copyright: Thomas Balsamo

If you've noticed a flurry of attention to autism in the past few days, it's because today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day.

There are tons of events planned for the day, including a United Nations panel on building awareness of the disorder, in collaboration with the Government of the State of Qatar and Autism Speaks.

Beginning on March 29, CNN also began devoting hours of coverage to issues surrounding autism, including symptoms, early diagnosis and therapies. The coverage continues all day today, beginning with Dr. Sanjay Gupta at 6am through Anderson Cooper's 10 pm show, and focusing on autism across the world, from China and India to Africa and the United States. The accompanying website includes an interactive guide to autism and links to let you view some of the content online.

The credit for much of this activity goes to Suzanne Wright and her colleagues at Autism Speaks, who marshalled their resources to reach out to media across the world. Here's hoping all these efforts make a real difference.