Children with autism love absolutes, and one of life’s absolutes is that everyone makes mistakes. It’s the degree, the nuance, the scale, the gradation of these mistakes that confounds the child with autism. But autism is often characterized by the ability to generalize. To this child’s concrete, black-and-white thinking, each mistake or failing stands as his and his alone, and [...]
My baby nephew came to visit when he was just a few months old. I missed him as soon as the door closed when he left. He smelled so good. With his head on my shoulder and my face next to that sweet head, I couldn’t get enough of that smell. I wanted to smile and say, “You aren’t always [...]
A parent asks: We have an eight-year-old daughter with autism. We’ve always agreed on our approach to parenting her, and we have no trouble loving her just the way she is. She gets speech therapy and other interventions through her school, which have helped her progress in her schoolwork and with interacting with her classmates. We’re new to the community, [...]
A mother asks: My preschooler has autism. He’s in a summer school program because of concerns about regression. On our first day, he threw a tantrum when we arrived. The teacher said he’d be fine, but the director of the program said that I either had to go in with him, have breakfast with him, and take him to the [...]
A parent asks: My husband and I are working parents of a four-year-old son with autism. When I see videos or read about abuse of autistic kids, I question my son’s school. He’s never shown any signs of abuse or complained about anything. But how can I know that my son’s teachers do right by him and do their jobs [...]
The mid-1990s weren’t exactly the Dark Ages of autism, but families like ours hard-landed on a spectrum unthinkable today: no websites, apps, social media, sensory-friendly events, autism curriculum, tagless clothing (hey--that's important!). While resources were sparse, dumb clichés were as plentiful as they are today. One of the most prevalent was that children with autism “are off in their own [...]
"Is the moon important?" My young son asked this at a time when he was posing other penetrating questions like "Do farts weigh anything?" and "Why are shampoo bubbles always white when the shampoo is purple or green?" I explained that the pull of the moon's gravity affects how ocean tides rise and fall, high tide when the waves roll [...]
One fine day I sat in the boardroom listening to a dynamic project manager describe the strategy for the next customer acquisition campaign. Only days earlier she’d told me she was sick to death of enduring meetings with men who couldn’t string together two sentences without spouting sports idioms. “The ball’s in their court,” she mimicked, “and they need to [...]
The battle cry “Just Do It” turns thirty this year. An athletic-shoe company ad slogan, those three little words spawned many interpretations. Some took it as rousing: yes, improving myself is that simple! Some took it as derisive: get off your ass and stop making excuses already! Whatever the intent or the inflection, it became a cultural refrain. I remember [...]
“You ain’t fair.” That memorable accusation in To Kill a Mockingbird comes after Scout’s uncle wallops her for flinging forbidden foul language at a peer. “You never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it,” she berates him. Scout’s charge of unfairness is a far cry from our children whining about who got two extra French [...]