Autism--A Boy's View

At school we see many kids with Autism. It's diagnosis continues to grow. There is a spectrum of Autism, and some kids function quite well. I would venture to guess that one of my kids might have been (maybe still is) mildly, mildly autistic as a toddler. Or maybe that was just toddlerism at its finest. Autistic children are often very gifted and/or intelligent though breaking through their walls to discover their gifts is very often difficult.

At any rate, I just finished reading an article written by a mom whose son is autistic. He just started school. She believes that on the autism scale, he's probably moderately autistic. One night, as she was sitting in his room, he told her how his brain works. She happened to have her computer with her so typed up, verbatim, what he said. It's fascinating.

"I have a little doorknob on a little door that has 10,000 computers in it," he said. "There are even little doors that have more. I have this control panel with two levers. You pull the lever, and then I can think of something. So that's how my brain works.

"I count the ABC's and then I try to get the letters. So that's how I know the ABC's. And now I don't forget them anymore. I go ABC, DEFG, HIJK, LMNOP, QRS, TUV, WXY and Z. Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you germ with me."

He paused. I did not want him to stop. I wanted to know everything, because I think that knowing him will let me protect him. I am wrong, of course.

"Is that how you do math?" I asked, quietly. I was afraid to move his train of thought. "Do you do math with the levers?"

He shook his head no.

"This door called the Multiplication Center is almost as close as the library in my brain. It has one computer, and then I have four, and tomorrow I will have 16. And then I have these little flaps that you flip and you color them and see if you make some multiplication, the math, the worksheets."

He continued down the hallway of his mind.

"Down in my lab I think about germs. I think about Pull-Ups and I think about 'Star Wars,' Indiana Jones, Batman. Legos are in my lab.

"And guess what else? Next over there I got the attic. That attic is full of junk. There are beach balls and stuff everywhere, a lot of things in there. And I think people have played with them.

"I have a school place. This one is kind of like my classrooms, but mine is mixed up. It is upside down, kind of. I have the school Legos, they go right there, because I have this little shelf that we can put things, but we don't put things at the bottom."