Adventures in Autism!

So, I'm gonna dial back for a moment from my melodramatic self ramblings about love found and love lost for a little while.  Don't worry, more of the fun and funny stuff will be on it's way shortly, but this is kind of important.

No seriously, stop laughing!  I can be serious, darnit!  Honest.

Ok.  Now that we've all got our serious faces on, let's talk.  Or rather, you read and keep reading, and I'll tell you what I'm thinking about.

Autism.  It's the latest buzz word in the world of child academia.  The experts say for every 88 normal (neurotypical) children, there is 1 autistic child.  There are varying degrees of autism, from non functional to functional with odd idiosyncrasies.   Back when I was a child, it was called being "learning disabled" which is kind of an odd and nasty term.  It makes it sound as though the learning part of your brain was disabled by robots or something.  And, being as I was a learning disabled child... I can assure you that was not the case, all parts of my brain were usually firing on 8-10 cylinders at any given time.  I think my teachers would attest to this, too.

Anyway, about 2 years ago, we received diagnosis on our oldest child Evan.  Evan is very bright, has been reading since about the age of 2 and a half, could recite the alphabet at 12 months, went into his year appointment with our pediatrician telling him that he had a octagon on his wall.  But, with all the wonderful smart things Ev can do, he has a very hard time focusing on things outside of his universe of discourse.
Evan is autistic.  He has what used to be called Asperger's disorder.  If this sounds familiar, it is; Paul was also diagnosed with the disorder as he was growing up.  That's maybe where you heard it from.  It's now referred to as being "on the autism spectrum" or "autism spectrum disorder."  Which generically describes people who are low functioning, people who can't speak, and a lot of variance in between.  The point is, their brains just work a wee bit differently.

Adding to this, Evan was also diagnosed with ADHD.  Now, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder is where a person has a hard time focusing on the task at hand.

Add to that with Aspergers a person obsesses on a few topics and cannot remove their mind from said topics as easily as a neurotypical person, and has little or no sense of social queues what so ever... You can imagine what it might be like to be Evan for a day.

The teacher says "be quiet class, I want to read you a story."
Evan's brain chimes in "Hey dude, you know what would be really awesomely hilarious?  Let's talk about our 3DS with everyone around us!"
Evan thinks, "HECK YEAH" and begins to engage everyone around him in the heroic tales of street pass, and how he goes into adventure mode and slays monsters.
Half the class is now engaged in Evan's story, the other half listening to teacher.
The teacher does what she can to bring them back, but Evan's brain is still giving him input, wanting him to talk about things that interest him.
And his brain doesn't really see anything wrong, it doesn't record that teacher asked the class to be quiet, and now they are all being quiet and therefore he should follow suit.

The other day, I caught him using it as an excuse.  See, that's what I was afraid of.  Since I told his teacher, and we've been trying to work on ways to keep Evan on task, he's aware of his disorder, (I obviously tell him about it whenever he asks and all of that, too... but it's part of the daily discussion now).  But him trying to use it as an excuse really angered me.

You see, there's another dimension to this story.  I don't know who all knows this, but when I was 6 years old I was diagnosed with a disorder called "dyspraxia nervousa".  If you look up that condition now, it doesn't exist, it is just shortened down to "dyspraxia"    Dyspraxia is also on the autism spectrum, considered a touch bit less severe than Asperger's.  But still, I had a hell of a hard time in school, my sense of social queues was skewed, my handwriting was terrible, and my hands would cramp after writing relatively long assignments at school.

My parents never told me what I could and couldn't do.  They simply said "you're going to have more trouble with some things, so you will have to work twice as hard.  You'll have special support in the special education room, you can go there whenever you need it."

I was pulled out of class twice a week for several years thereafter for physical therapy.  The therapy was doing things like hitting a ball with a racket, the "superman" or as they call it in yoga the "lotus" pose, and all kinds of crazy things.  All done in the hallway at my school, all designed to strengthen my muscles and improve my hand/eye coordination, which is the primary thing that dyspraxia effects.  My Dad used to tell my teachers who didn't understand "put on two pairs of fabric gloves, you know, the stretchy ones, then try to pick up a pencil and write, and there you have Dee.  Keep that in mind when you read her assignments."  He tells me it used to make him so angry when they would display my work right next to the work of the other children.  Mine always looked pretty terrible comparatively, but at the same time, it was important that I felt like every other kid.  I got through school, and by 10th grade I managed to get de-certified from the special education program.  I was VERY proud.

Then, as I entered college, I realized what I really wanted to do was write, which is, incidentally, exactly the one thing that it's difficult for a dyspraxic to manage.  Aside from the physical limitations of my disability, there was the looming sequencing disorder, which makes it difficult for me to put steps of an operation into the correct order, as well as spell.  (you don't understand HOW much spell check is my friend, seriously, for reals.  It saves my arse daily.)
Also, I could never tell my left from my right.  To this day I have trouble.  I can write equally well with both my hands, so that makes it more difficult.
I used to have to talk to my feet in ice skating lessons  so that the darned things would do what I wanted them to.  I did pretty well in ice skating... strangely enough.  It was another thing I wasn't supposed to be able to do.

So, you can imagine how I felt when I heard my oldest child using his disability as a crutch.  I was so angry.
This morning, as the kids were getting ready for school, he lagged behind, refusing to put on his clothes, just sat around naked from the waist down, waiting for someone to do everything for him because he was "too tired."
I said "Hey Evan."
He looked up.
I said "You've got a big old brain in that head of yours."
he smiled and nodded.
I said "That big old brain likes to steer you down the wrong path a lot, though.  You need to show that sucker who's boss."
He said "But how Mommy?"
I said "You tell your brain, right now we are doing this thing, we'll get back to that thing later."
He looked as though he had his doubts and finally said "But Mommy, I can't talk to my brain."
I said "People talk to all sorts of things all of the time.  You can talk to your brain, some people talk to God all the time, I used to talk to my hands and feet.  You can do this!"
He smiled, then looked sullen, "But Mom, the Rubric is today!  I'm going to get a 1 again, I just know it"
1 is the lowest score on the Rubric, which is a self evaluation/teacher evaluation tool.
I said "That's ok Ev, there's always next week, and I'll be proud of you no matter what."
I hugged him tight and kissed his head.  He's getting too tall.  He's up past my shoulders already, pretty brown eyes, reddish brown, thick, straight hair, beautiful long eyelashes, and thin like his Dad.

When the diagnosis first came in, I was pretty frightened.  They kept telling me "Autistic kids need structure." and I kept thinking to myself, "I have about as much structure as an old building in an earthquake."  I kept thinking of those old collapsing toys, where you hit the button and they just fall all over themselves.  My kids are full of emotion, Evan has temper tantrums sometimes... It's hard to deal with.

But... Then I go back to what my old television neighbor said:

"There is no 'should' or 'should not' when it comes to having feelings.  They're part of who we are, and their origins are beyond our control.  When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings."

-Fred Rogers.

You have to just, find the emotion behind the tantrum, address the emotion, "I understand Evan that you are feeling frustrated because you cannot play a video game now.  And it's ok to be angry about it, but let's try to find a better way to use that angry feeling.  Can we draw about it?  Can we write about it?  Can we sing about it?"

I know I am going to handle all of this somehow.  I know Evan will do well, I just... get very frustrated sometimes.  But you know what?  That's all part of the process.