Category Archives: diagnosis

What I Wish I’d Been Made Aware of When My Daughter Was Diagnosed With Autism

Posted on April 4, 2013 | 110 Comments

What follows are some of the things I wish I’d been told (and given) when we learned Emma was Autistic.  These are the things, in retrospect, I wish all those doctors, specialists, pediatricians, therapists and people who dedicate their lives and careers to autism had told me, but did not.  I believe our lives would have changed dramatically had we been told even a few of these things.  It is my hope that for those of you who may be at the beginning of your journey with an Autistic child, this list might help you avoid some of the many, many mistakes we made and a great deal of unnecessary pain.

1.  Seek out the work of Autistic people ~ most of the work I’ve listed was not available when my daughter was diagnosed, but it is now.  Take advantage of all that is out there, these people are leading the way.  If I had to choose just one thing that has had the single greatest impact on my life and the life of my daughter, it is these people.  My gratitude to all of them doesn’t come close to covering how I feel.

a)  Blogs by Autistic people:  (This is a partial list.  To see more blogs go to the blogroll ‘here‘ as well as each of these blogs often feature blogrolls as well ~  A Quiet Week, Autism Experts, Autistic Hoya, Chavisory, Cracked Mirror in Shalott, Emma’s Messiah Miracle of Music, Evil Autie, Gareeth, I’m Somewhere Else, It’s Bridget’s Word, Just Stimming,  Kyriolexy, Musings of an Aspie, Olliebean, Paula Durbin-Westby’s Blog, Radical Neurodivergence Speaking, thAutcast, The Third Glance, Tiny Grace Notes, Yes, That Too

b)  Watch these two documentaries:  Wretches and Jabberers and Vectors of Autism

c)  Read books written by Autistic people (again this is just a few of my favorites):  Barb Rentenbach’s, I might be you, any book written by Judy Endow, Peyton Goddard’s, i am intelligent, Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, any book written by Tito Mukhopadhyay, S.R. Salas’s, Black and White, Michael Scott Monje Jr.’s Nothing is Right and A Field Guide to Earthlings: An autistic/Asperger view of neurotypical behavior

2. Autism is not a disease.  Read Don’t mourn for us by Jim Sinclair.  This may take some time for you to understand.  It’s okay.  Get the help and support you need so you can better help your child.  Try to think of autism in the same way you think about any groupings, a Mac and a PC, fiction, non-fiction, memoir and young adult, a shirt, a pair of pants, shoes and socks, a microwave and a gas heated oven.  Autistic, Neurotypical, Allistic, (or my personal favorite, coined by a friend) NT-NOS, we are all human beings.   Try not to judge one over another.  Judgment will not help you help your child.

3.  Presume Competence.  (This ‘post‘ helps explain what presuming competence means.)  If a therapy and/or professional does not approach your child with a presumption of competence, please consider finding one who does.  Tremendous long-term damage can come from not presuming competence.  Rethink how you view communication.  Listen to your child, not just to words, but to body language, facial expressions.  You may be surprised by the ways your child is communicating despite not being able to do so verbally.  Teach her to point with her index finger, first with support if needed and as time goes on, fade the support. Give her the appropriate tools and support so that she can learn to type or communicate by pointing to a letter board.    There are many wonderful iPad apps that can help with this.  Begin with sequencing games and colored tiles, or if she’s musical, notes.  Join them together to make patterns.  Show her first, have her mimic.

4.  Do not speak of or about your child as though they cannot and do not understand or hear you  (read Barb Rentenbach’s book for more on this).  This is something we did without thinking for years.  Sadly it is not the only regret I have, but one of many.  Still it is worth repeating.  Chances are your child can and does understand what you’re saying even if they do not show any signs that you recognize.

5.  Throw out everything you think you know and question everything.  There is a massive amount of misinformation/myths disguised as truth and fact regarding autism.  You may hear people say things like “They are in their own little world,” or “they are imprisoned behind their autism” these phrases are perhaps an accurate reflection of what non-Autistic people feel about the Autistic person in their life, but they serve to divide rather than unite and ultimately serve none of us. Be suspicious of anyone who says they know what causes autism or how to “treat” it.  Disregard any organization that describes autism and your child as tragic, an epidemic, a burden or any other word generally reserved for warfare.  If you read or hear something that causes you to feel fear, walk away, it is most likely inaccurate and intended to make you afraid.  None of us are able to help our children when we are terrified.  Fear can cause us to make decisions we will later regret.

6.  Set your child up to succeed.  My daughter is extremely sensitive to criticism.  Saying “No!” or criticizing her does not help her learn, but instead makes her feel badly about herself.  Encourage her with smiles and by asking her to try again.

7. Do not try to make your Autistic child behave like a non Autistic child, instead encourage your Autistic child to be the very best ______ (fill in your child’s name) they can be.  For more, read ‘this‘.

8.  Avoid comparing your child to any other child, Autistic or otherwise.  I have struggled with this one and continue to.  All I can say is, this is a work in progress. I hope one day to “know” this and refrain from doing it as it gets me into “compare and despair” thinking faster than anything else.  Emma is Emma.  She is best served when I remember this fact.

9. We parents are fallible.  We will make mistakes.  I’ve made dozens.  I wish I hadn’t made quite so many.  But I have.  If there is one thing I know without a doubt it is this – I will make mistakes, I am human.  I can admit my mistakes, tell my daughter how sorry I am, make a living amends to her by doing everything in my power not to repeat the mistake and continue to move forward without beating myself or anyone else up.  As my wise mother once said, “Show and tell your children over and over how much you love them, and one day they will forgive you.”

10. Get to know Autistic adults.  One of the single biggest misperceptions surrounding autism is that autism is only seen in children.  Autistic adults are often our best teachers and  many of them are leading the way so that our children’s lives might be better than their own.  These people are courageously and tirelessly pushing back against the deeply ingrained prejudices, biases and misperceptions that are rampant within our society.  (See #1)  It is my goal to honor these people who have beaten a path ahead of my daughter so that she may more easily live in this world that so often will not and does not accommodate her or give her what she needs to flourish.  They are speaking out, let’s all get behind them and give them the microphone so that more can hear what they are saying.  One day, the person holding that microphone might just be your child!

The year after Emma was diagnosed ~ 2005

Em - 2005

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A Typed Conversation With My Daughter

Posted on October 24, 2012 | 24 Comments

This is the typed “conversation” I had with Emma last night inspired by the wonderful comments left here yesterday.  This was done with very little talking.  Emma’s replies are in italics.

“Hi Emma.  I know one of your favorite songs is “Beat it”.  What other songs do you like?

Emma likes Fireworks.  Emma likes to go swimming.

Hey!  Did you go swimming today?

Yes, it cold go swimming.

Emma, was the water cold or was the air outside cold or both?

 Both cold outside.

It is cold outside now because it is fall.  I like the fall when the air gets colder.  Do you like the fall too?

 Yes, I do like the fall too.

What do you want to do this weekend?

 I want to have a weekend with Jackie at the Vanderbilt wiyemseeay.  And go swimming.”

This was HUGE for Emma and me.  Rereading it now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t ask better questions and follow her lead more instead of directing the conversation.  For example I wish I’d spent more time talking to her about swimming instead of going off about the seasons, which were of little if any interest to her.  I could have asked her a great many questions about the pool and swimming and the water temperature, but didn’t.  I was so surprised when she wrote, “Yes, it cold go swimming.”  I literally laughed out loud when she wrote that, because this is just huge for her to introduce a new thought, to volunteer new information when typing together.  Excitement doesn’t really sum up what I felt.  I was ecstatic!

Emma kept trying to read my typed words out loud, but I reminded her to read silently.  I made a huge number of mistakes while having this conversation with her.  I corrected her spelling a couple of times, and wished I hadn’t.  I never know whether it’s best to let her spell things and go over the spelling later, separately or whether its better to correct it right away or better to leave it alone.  I wanted her to feel encouraged, supported and cheered on, not criticized.  So that’s something I am still questioning.  I also get so excited when she says anything off the grid, I get overwhelmed and can’t think what to say other than – “OMG you just introduced a new topic and I’m so excited!!”  Maybe I can learn to relax a little and go with it a bit more.  I am also aware that my excitement is an example of my NOT assuming competence or rather it is me feeling euphoric that Em shows her vast intelligence in a way that my NT brain can grasp.  I really want to learn how to move away from that limited thinking on my part.

When Emma was diagnosed with autism I remember that first day when all the therapists came to our home to work with her.  I’d done my homework, read all the materials the agency provided me with and then some.  Yet, I remember how everything was “dumbed down”.  Things that I knew she knew were treated as though she didn’t know them.  Really simple things were suddenly a huge deal if she indicated she knew them.  I remember vividly my confusion.  I began to doubt everything I thought I knew or assumed about Emma.  I completely capitulated to some set idea about my daughter given by a group of people who had never met her but made assumptions based on a single word – Autistic.

I’m old enough and have enough humility to admit I don’t know what I’m doing a great deal of the time.  This is not a popular statement in our culture of bullshit reigning supreme, even if it’s all a lie, even if it means people who know almost nothing about a given topic, but who claim “expertise” are suddenly seen as having something sensible to say.  The art of bullshit has become a well honed skill by about the age of ten these days.  It’s amazing how quickly children learn to adopt it.  Add a little chutzpah and you’ve got a kid who will go far in this world of ours without being particularly knowledgable in anything.

However, the art of bullshit requires a couple of things –  a massive dose of ego and an ability to lie.  My daughter Emma has neither of these.  Still, I am feeling confident she will do well in this crazy world of ours.

The ongoing construction of the Freedom Tower

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It Begins With My Father

Posted on August 28, 2012 | 54 Comments

Emma – This morning

 

Yesterday’s post inspired more thought.  I have often asked myself why?

Why did I believe all those specialists, doctors and “Autism experts,” particularly as I have always been so wary of authority figures?  Why didn’t I question the specialists, why did I engage in a war for so long?  Why wasn’t I one of the parents who saw through the autism = tragedy model?  I have always been somewhat of a rebel, what happened to that rebellious streak?

The answer begins with my father.

My father had a horse back riding accident when I was nine years old.  He was just shy of his 50th birthday.   It was a Wednesday.  I was home sick with the flu.  For years afterward I blamed myself for his accident.  If I had put up a bigger fuss, maybe he wouldn’t have left.  If only I’d been sicker he would have stayed home with me.  If only I had begged him to read another chapter from the incomprehensible book he’d been reading to me, if only, if only…  But that wasn’t what happened.  He left.  He did not come back as promised.

The next few weeks are a blur of images and sensations.  Sounds of my mother crying behind her bedroom door.   My grandmother arriving in a dramatic swirl of lavender and rose perfume and silk, her hair perfectly brushed, the grey curls delicately framing her beautiful features, her gnarled, arthritic, fingers turning the pages to one of my school books as she helped me with my homework.  The afternoon I yelled, “I hate you” to my mother who dropped the rolls of toilet paper she was carrying to the floor.  Her receding figure disappearing behind the door to her bedroom, their bedroom, now half empty.  The rolls of toilet paper, partially unfurled, lay in disarray at my feet.  My fury, shame, and horror, tangled and confused, waiting for an acknowledgment I was incapable of giving, instead I stormed into my bedroom and kicked the drawers of my bureau, leaving the mess on the floor in the hallway for someone else to pick up.  My feelings, I learned much later, were not as easily left behind.

Visits to the hospital.  Doctors in white coats, clipboards, a red light next to my father’s bed, the beeping emanating from a monitor overhead, his life reduced to one thin jagged line on a screen.  The needles inserted into his veins, pumping clear liquid contained in bags held by poles and hooks into his damaged, broken body.   The nurse who crackled as she moved, her shoes squeaked as she approached.  The smell.  That horrible, unmistakable, antiseptic smell that burned my nostrils and pulled at my stomach, making me worry I might vomit.  The emotionless, grave, tones used by the doctors, carefully offering opinions as though they were a given, as though fact.  The statements, each a warning, a flag being hoisted up the mast of hopelessness –  ”He may not make it.”  ”He may be paralyzed for the rest of his life.”  ”He will never walk again.”  Each pronouncement proven wrong.  Each learned statement shown up for what it really was, nothing more than a thought.

My father confounded them all.  He, alone, it seemed to me at the time, had risen up from the dead, shown them their stupidity.  He was underestimated time and time again.  For decades, through sheer force of will, determination and hard work, he showed the medical profession, and me, what was possible.   And yet, even my father eventually succumbed to a wheelchair the final decade of his life.  I saw first hand the prejudices, the attitudes of people who came into contact with him. And while his was also a disability, it was of a very different kind from autism.  He and by extension, I, never “accepted” it.  His neurology was unaffected as his legs gave out.  He needed support, yet proudly refused help.  When he died, “his” doctor refused to come to the house, saying my father was no longer under his care because he hadn’t been to see him in so many years.  We were forced to call 911.  My father had no respect for the medical profession.  He had proven them wrong.  His life was a testament to that.  He believed in self reliance.  He believed in himself.

When we were given Emma’s diagnosis, without thinking, I knew what I had to do.  I, too, would confound all the naysayers, those who said, nothing could be done.  Those who grimly wrote evaluations, itemizing my daughters deficits with matter of fact, clinical words.  Her vibrant personality reduced to a critique, her intelligence, not applicable, not even a number as she was deemed impossible to test.  I would show them, just as my father had.  It was the beginning.  I didn’t know it at the time.  I didn’t realize I had chosen the wrong road to go down.  I didn’t see that my initial, knee jerk reaction to her diagnosis was correct after all.  The word “autism” wasn’t what was wrong.  It was the information and interpretation of what that word meant that was wrong.   If you’d told me this at the time, I would have responded in rage.  I would have told you, you were wrong.  I would have told you I could save her from the diagnosis, when what I needed to do was save her from the misperceptions surrounding the diagnosis.

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Emma’s Struggle with Pronouns

Posted on August 4, 2011 | 3 Comments

I have written about this before – Emma’s continuing struggle with using the correct pronouns.  It is something one sees in children on the spectrum.  Pronoun confusion, lack of pointing at an early age, a lack of engagement or initiating play, these are all warning signs in small children and almost all children diagnosed with autism share at least a couple of these.

Emma uses the word “you” when speaking about herself, but also when speaking about someone else.  It’s a word she uses for anyone, herself included.  As in “You want to go on the 4-wheeler?”  Someone who doesn’t know Emma would assume she’s inviting them to go with her and the response is often an enthusiastic, “Yes, I do want to go on the 4-wheeler!”

Emma, then happily runs outside, turns the engine on and waits for the unsuspecting person to join her.  This scenario actually happened with our cousin Max, whom neither of the kids had ever met until last summer.  But when Emma says things like, “Bye Emma!” to the person she has just been introduced to, things get a bit more confusing.

So last night when Richard and Emma picked me up from my store in town, she said, “No not going to see July fireworks.  They’re too scary.  Mommy has to pick you up.”  Then she paused and said, “No, Mommy has to pick me up!”  We were surprised and pleased.

“That’s right Em!”  And then as an aside to Richard, “Wow!  That was pretty great.  She corrected herself!”

Emma then repeated herself several times, “Fireworks too scary.  Mommy will pick me up.”  She looked from Richard to me proudly.  ”Good talking!” she said, before leaping into the car.

During the ride back to the ranch she tried various variations on this theme.  Each time using “me” correctly.

It was a proud moment for all of us.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:  www.EmmasHopeBook.com

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Labels – Autism

Posted on July 27, 2011 | 1 Comment

Labels are easy, they’re shorthand for what we want to communicate and yet they often obscure what is really being said.  (These are the things I think about when I’m away from my family for an extended period of time, as I have been, since coming out to Aspen because of work. All of this reflection will end in another four days, because the children and Richard will be joining me out here this Sunday – Hurray!)

We say things like – “oh he’s schizophrenic,” “she’s bi-polar,” “she’s anorexic,” “he’s an alcoholic” and the meaning gets conveyed and yet, is it?  After all that’s not ALL the person is.  It’s something they have been diagnosed with, perhaps are struggling with,  it’s a medical term, but it does not encompass who and what that person is in their entirety.  When I hear someone describe another person as “autistic” I understand that person has been given a diagnosis of autism, but I don’t presume to know much more about that person.  For example, I won’t know if this particular person diagnosed with autism can speak, read or write, they may have other issues, physical issues, other diagnoses added on to further illuminate, but the labels begin to overwhelm the actual person.  I can’t know from the various labels whether the person has a sense of humor, if they have terrific eye contact or no eye contact, whether they cringe at physical contact or whether they seek it.  The word “autistic” does not give me any clues as to whether the person is gregarious or shy, enjoys reading about painting or knows everything there is to know about quantum physics.  The label does not tell me about the person’s passions, dreams, desires or talents.  If I knew nothing about autism, having someone described to me as such might cause me to presume a great many things.  Things I would be completely wrong in assuming.

In my daughter, Emma’s case, the labels are almost always unhelpful.  I use them, it is shorthand after all, but they reduce her to something that doesn’t help people know her or understand her.  For example, Emma has a terrific sense of humor, she loves playing jokes, being silly, making faces, repeating things in a way that will guarantee a laugh.  When I use the word autism, or say to someone – she has autism – it’s the best I can do in a short period of time.  It’s a little like when we say to one another – “How are you today?”  The answer we all know to give is:  ”I’m fine, how are you.”  Even if we aren’t fine.  Can you imagine if you asked that seemingly innocuous question and the response was:  ”You better take a seat, this may take some time.”

I avoid using the word “autistic” because it implies more to me, than saying “she has autism.”   It’s a subtle distinction, but to me, anyway, it’s there.  Emma is so much more than a diagnosis.  She is pure Emma. And Emma is complex, just like the rest of us.  She is funny, a talented singer with a beautiful voice, she has a personality and temperament that are unique to her.  She loves to run and swim and swing her arms and zip around on her scooter.  She enjoys being read to, sung to, and any game that involves running.  I dislike that her diagnosis takes up so much room in people’s minds.  I do not like that when people hear she’s “autistic” they make assumptions about her, almost always incorrect.

Can you imagine what the world would be like, if all of us took all these labels, our shorthand for communicating and tossed them out the window?  We would live in a world, which would make prejudice and judgements much more difficult to come by.  We would have to live in the discomfort of not knowing.  But what a great way to live!

Emma – 13 months – eating a brownie.

For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to:  www.EmmasHopeBook.com

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