Autism campaign nets White House trip

Back in high school, Idil Abdull remembers, she once posed in front of the White House for a photo. It was the only time she was there -- until this week, when she returned as a guest.

Abdull, the mother of an autistic child in Burnsville, found herself surrounded by some of the top scientists, advocates and health officials in the country at Monday's White House conference on autism awareness.

"It was awesome," she said.

As co-founder of the Somali American Autism Foundation, Abdull has spent the last three years trying to call attention to the needs of autistic children, especially among immigrant families. She has overcome her own cultural inhibitions, which once kept her from admitting her son's condition to her own family, to press her case in the halls of power -- from the Minnesota Legislature to the governor's office and now, to the home of the president.

One of her biggest concerns is what appears to be the soaring rate of autism in Minnesota's Somali community.

Just last year, she led a lobbying effort for a $400,000 study, now in the works, to examine the problem. It's that kind of advocacy, she says, that got the attention of the president's special assistant for disability policy, who invited her to Monday's event.

At the White House, she said, she mingled with assistant secretaries from Justice and Labor and Health and Civil Rights, talking about how children with autism can get the medical help and support they need.

"That means autism is in the minds of the leaders of this country, which is important," she said. "In today's world, their plates are full, there's a crisis everywhere." To devote a day to talking about autism, she says, was "monumental."

"Who would believe," she added, "that I could take this story all the way to the White House and they would listen?"

maura.lerner@startribune.com