A father in Malaysia is passionately defending his autistic son after their neighbors filed multiple complaints in order to get his family evicted from their rented house in Temasya Suria, Shah Alam.

Iman Wan Tuck Meng’s heart is bleeding for his son, who is too innocent to understand that there are parts of the world that continue to reject people like him simply because he has autism spectrum disorder. They do not understand why he often makes vocalizations for seemingly no reason.

“For the record, Adam is not noisy every day, and even if he was, it’s never from dawn till dusk,” Iman says.

Since the very beginning, Adam has been in a world of his own, leaving his parents with the difficult task of trying to translate his needs to the rest of the world, much of which does not understand him and does not try.

Their family has strived for years to bridge that gap, encouraging Adam to look into their eyes and to be a part of their world, too, even if only for small fractions of each day. But mostly they hope they can help the world be more understanding of Adam.

When Adam turned 20, he started to interact with them and look them in the eyes meaningfully. But, this time, another challenge faced their family. Due to Adam’s symptoms, which sometimes include noisy meltdowns in the morning, their neighbors made a heartless move to get them thrown out of their rental home.

"We got to know from a reliable source that the reason our tenancy will not be renewed is because the owner felt too stressed over the year from complaints made by our two neighbours to her," says Iman.

Iman’s family was not ready for it. He is still preparing to have their own house in two years’ time, but their neighbors could not wait to get them thrown out of the neighborhood.

But, despite the sorrowful turn of events, Iman’s family faces it with grace and hope. The most important thing is that they have Adam to share their lives with.

As Iman aptly puts it in one of his Facebook post, “People go out of their ways to impress friends and families...driven by ongoing discontentment that can only be met and measured with material gratifications. I was like that too, blinded somewhat and pressured by society and the norms until this boy saved me from a neverending rat race.”

Indeed, some parts of this world seem to forget that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not a liability or a burden to society. In fact, many people on the spectrum have enriched this world with their intelligence, skills, and talents.

It is a fundamental lack of compassion and understanding that is causing society to decay. We hope this story will be a lesson to people everywhere that a little understanding and kindness can go a long way and that it's not okay to treat someone with such cruelty simply because they seem different.

Written by Doris De Luna