People tell me that Ian is disabled, but most of the time, I don’t see it. He seems so normal to us. Sure, he’s a boy of very few words, but he uses those words pretty effectively. Since we spend nearly every waking moment together, I know that when he says “George. Helicopter,” he’s thinking about his Curious George book. I’ll repeat what he said, so that he knows I understood him and we’ll go back and forth chatting in our own way.
Ninety percent of the time, he has a big smile on his face. We went through six months of screaming frustration, but that is over now. He’s a happy kid who loves to snuggle in bed in the morning and rough house with his brother.
He keeps himself amused with his toys. Right now, he’s playing a train simulation computer program meant for ten year olds. (He’s three and a half.)
He goes to a special education school in the morning where they tell me that his speech is still very poor, but they don’t really know why. It could be faulty wiring between his mouth and his brain or it could between his ears and his brain or it could be both. The school is okay. I think that they should be using his Rainman visual skills to help him talk; they have firm ideas that three year olds shouldn’t read. But in general, it’s a warm fuzzy place, where they coo about how cute he is.
Between his warm, fuzzy school and warm, fuzzy home, we’ve kept Ian very safe. Other than the time he got chucked out of the bad pre-school last September, he hasn’t really been forced to do things that other three year olds do. He hasn’t been judged by critical eyes who only like the average. I haven’t had to watch the look of disgust or hear the sniff of disapproval from priggish nursery school teachers.
Until now. I signed him up for an exercise class at the local Y. He went off just fine. When I peeked in the door, he was climbing all over the equipment and seemed to be having a great time. But as it was time to go, I asked Miss Erica how it went. She said disapprovingly, “I don’t know. That one wouldn’t do anything I asked him to do. I don’t know about him.”
Vomit.
Apt. 11d 
That’s good news, Laura.
Which train simulation?
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“But as it was time to go, I asked Miss Erica how it went. She said disapprovingly, “I don’t know. That one wouldn’t do anything I asked him to do. I don’t know about him.”
What is he supposed to be, a robot? Feh. I wonder if he just didn’t like Miss Erica’s voice. I wonder if she used so many words it was a just a buzz to him. In both cases, the problem’s with the teacher but of course that’s not an option for her to consider.
This summer my daughter had some martial arts training from a fellow whose English was well sketchy, but she said she learned more from him than from some previous instructors. She’s now using the same methods with a tyke she’s coaching (as part of her progress toward black belt in a martial art). “We don’t use words, much, Mom. If I talk too much he can’t do it. He watches me do it, then we do it side by side, really slow and then he does it normal speed.” (She’s teaching him the elementary forms).
Maybe finding a class where the teacher depends on modelling, not words, would be good.
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Stephen, Lionel Train Town. It’s really a great program.
thanks, Liz. Yeah, Ian definitely is a visual learner. His auditory processing abilities seem to widely fluctuate depending on background sounds and other distractions. It may be why he seems so normal at home and why he has problems in noisier places.
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Our YMCA is wonderfully supportive of youngest — she gets greetings from many staff members each Saturday we go for swimming and gymnastics. Besides one initial introduction with each staff member: “This is youngest. She’s X years old and has autism along with a seizure disorder. She may need you to touch her to get her attention and repeated verbal cues. She can do well if you can help her pay attention.” I demonstrate how to get her back on attention, make the introductions (youngest does best when reminded of the names of new people, but, then, who doesn’t?) and step back after that.
It’s frustrating to see the reactions and overhear the comments from some parents on the sidelines. “Why is that big girl just flopping around? Is she stupid?” I’ve gotten over my inhibitions so that, if I overhear them nowadays, I intervene, introduce myself as “the big girl’s mother” and explain that she’s autistic and that usually stops the comments, cold (at least in my presence).
I’d talk to Miss Erica and see if she straightens out her attitude. Usually after learning that they’ve been so wrong in their presumptions, good people step back and examine their prejudices a bit. If she doesn’t, it’s time to move up the ladder of the Y staff and make sure that, at the very least, she doesn’t stay somewhere that her persistent attitude poisons his environment.
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Thanks, Ancarett. I really admire you for not crawling under the bench when you heard the other parents making those comments. I’m not quite there yet. Still crawling under the bench. I am so tempted to keep him close to us and other nice people just to protect everyone from those nasty people.
When we started the class, I only told the teacher that Ian had a speech delay. I didn’t say anything about his auditory processing issues, because I didn’t really know if it was going to be a problem. Sometimes he’s fine, sometimes not. I guess he’s having problems because there are only two other distracted kids in the class. He can’t replicate what they are doing. And there’s construction going on outside the door. Probably can’t concentrate on anything with the power drills buzzing in his ears. We’re still figuring him out, so I didn’t say anything ahead of time. I’ll talk to Miss Erica next week.
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I’ll try to work up something on manners and middle-class anxieties about childhood–but the book you’re blogging about now contains some potential wisdom on this point (e.g., that certain conceptions of mannerly behavior are as much markers of cultural distinction as they are self-evident benchmarks of social goodness).
Vz. imagination, I guess I’d be a lot more cautious about assuming that a kid who doesn’t demonstrate it in my presence lacks it otherwise. I sure knew better than to go off on imaginative spiels with adults I didn’t know well–or kids I didn’t like that much. I can already see my daughter is learning that a bit; some kids don’t enjoy the elaborately scripted narrative play that she likes; her teachers sometimes don’t seem to play along with it entirely either. But I guess I’d also assume that some people (including kids) have dreamworlds which are largely internal, or that they can’t articulate, that might not show up with Lincoln Logs or some such.
And yeah, some kids are just little mean turds with no imagination. Which, again, has nothing to do with the X-Box.
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