Autism – the Misunderstood Malady (Part 4)

Jul 03, 2011 News

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Today’s foray into the world of autism begins with a look at another autistic hero and closes with ten things an autistic child wishes you knew.

Isaac Newton

“In 1665, when Isaac Newton was at Cambridge University, something very bad happened. A terrible disease swept across England. It was not safe to be in the city, where healthy people were crowded together with the sick. So Isaac had to go back to his family’s farm. Now, Isaac was very smart, but he was a useless farmer. His mother knew this and just let him do what he wanted all day.
And what Isaac wanted to do was think. Isaac was an amazing thinker. According to Isaac, what made him different from other people was that he could concentrate on one thing and never stop thinking about it until the thinking was done. He thought about light. He thought about colours. He thought about numbers. He even thought about what made things stay attached to the ground instead of flying off into space.
Why does an apple fall down from the tree, instead of up? He thought and thought until the answer came to him. Isaac had discovered gravity, the force that pulls little things—like apples—to big things—like the earth.
Another thing Isaac discovered was how to make a better telescope. He showed his telescope to some very smart people, and they loved it. So Isaac shared more things, like his ideas about light and colour. But not everyone agreed with Isaac’s ideas, and that hurt his feelings. He decided to keep the rest of his ideas to himself.
Many years went by. Isaac did lots of important things, like teaching at Cambridge University, but he didn’t share his discoveries with anyone. They weren’t a secret, exactly; he just didn’t know how important they were. Luckily, somebody else did.
When Isaac’s friend Edmund Halley asked him about gravity, Isaac dug up what he had written long ago. Edmund was amazed at Isaac’s discoveries. Isaac wasn’t sure about sharing them with other people, but Edmund kept bugging and bugging him until he agreed. Edmund helped Isaac turn his ideas into books that changed the way people thought forever.
One thing Isaac had come up with all those years before was a new kind of math called “calculus.” But before Isaac could get around to telling anybody about it, somebody else thought of it too! So who invented calculus? Isaac, who thought of it first? Or the other guy, who told people first? Believe it or not, people argued about this for over a hundred years. Some people still don’t agree. But it doesn’t really matter. Either way, Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history.”

The facts
I am a child with autism. I am not “autistic.” My autism is one aspect of my total character. It does not define me as a person. Are you a person with thoughts, feelings and many talents, or are you just fat (overweight), myopic (wear glasses) or klutzy (uncoordinated, not good at sports)?
My sensory perceptions are disordered. This means the ordinary sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches of everyday life that you may not even notice can be downright painful for me. The very environment in which I have to live often seems hostile. I may appear withdrawn or belligerent to you, but I am really just trying to defend myself.
A “simple” trip to the grocery store may be hell for me. My hearing may be hyperacute. Dozens of people are talking at once. The loudspeaker booms today’s special. Muzak whines from the sound system. Cash registers beep and cough. A coffee grinder is chugging. The meat cutter screeches, babies wail, carts creak, the fluorescent lighting hums.
My brain can’t filter all the input, and I’m in overload! My sense of smell may be highly sensitive. The fish at the meat counter isn’t quite fresh, the guy standing next to us hasn’t showered today, the deli is handing out sausage samples, the baby in line ahead of us has a poopy diaper, and they’re mopping up pickles on Aisle 3 with ammonia. … I can’t sort it all out, I’m too nauseous.
Because I am visually oriented, this may be my first sense to become over stimulated. The fluorescent light is too bright. It makes the room pulsate and hurts my eyes. Sometimes the pulsating light bounces off everything and distorts what I am seeing. The space seems to be constantly changing. There’s glare from windows, moving fans on the ceiling, so many bodies in constant motion, too many items for me to be able to focus – and I may compensate with tunnel vision.
All this affects my vestibular sense, and now I can’t even tell where my body is in space. I may stumble, bump into things, or simply lay down to try and regroup.
Please remember to distinguish between won’t (I choose not to) and can’t (I’m not able to). Receptive and expressive language is both difficult for me. It isn’t that I don’t listen to instructions. It’s that I can’t understand you.
When you call to me from across the room, this is what I hear: “*&^%$#@, Billy. #$%^*&^%$&*” Instead, come speak directly to me in plain words: “Please put your book in your desk, Billy. It’s time to go to lunch.” This tells me what you want me to do and what is going to happen next. Now it’s much easier for me to comply.
I am a concrete thinker. I interpret language literally. It’s very confusing for me when you say, “Hold your horses, cowboy!” when what you really mean is “Please stop running.” Don’t tell me something is a “piece of cake” when there is no dessert in sight and what you really mean is, “This will be easy for you to do.”
When you say, “It’s pouring cats and dogs,” I see pets coming out of a pitcher. Please just tell me, “It’s raining very hard.” Idioms, puns, nuances, double entendres and sarcasm are lost on me.
Be patient with my limited vocabulary. It’s hard for me to tell you what I need when I don’t know the words to describe my feelings. I may be hungry, frustrated, frightened or confused, but right now those words are beyond my ability to express. Be alert for body language, withdrawal, agitation, or other signs that something is wrong.  There’s a flip side to this: I may sound like a little professor or a movie star, rattling off words or whole scripts well beyond my developmental age.
These are messages I have memorized from the world around me to compensate for my language deficits, because I know I am expected to respond when spoken to. They may come from books, television or the speech of other people.
It’s called echolalia. I don’t necessarily understand the context or the terminology I’m using; I just know it gets me off the hook for coming up with a reply.

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