How Autism Affects My Cousin’s Son
Try to be a part of a Person Having Autism.
What is Autism?
Autism spectrum disorder ASD is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behaviour.
We often hear about how kids with autism feel isolated but the truth is their families also undergo those same experiences.
I have an experience with autism my cousin’s son has autism and this is a little story about my cousin’s son just a little bit I’m gonna tell you how autism has affected your family!
It’s a story that’s an experience that’s shared by a lot of families who have a son or daughter on the spectrum and when he was identified just before the age of three you’re dealing with the diagnosis and the fear and anxiety about what is autism and what is a long-term likelihood of independence and all those things but it’s the prognosis more often than not that really hits parents and for us, it was don’t plan on college and things like this so that triggered an angry response to where I said well we’ll determine what he’s capable of because there’s no real roadmap for these kids right so as parents.
I think when we look at it your children’s how autism presents itself with them is different you know that’s why it’s a spectrum so it’s viral could be sensory.
It could be a speech-related it could be social skill related to all those things and it can either be very profound or it can present as awkwardness or geekiness right.
So What Does That Mean?
Think about that in terms of within a school setting they’re either in an isolated room if it’s profound or if they’re integrated often they’re pulled out of that room and then those behaviours lead to difference right they looked at is different.
So what are you know you don’t get invited to the birthday parties you’re the last one picked during gym class you may be sitting at the lunch table by yourself you may be bullied so there’s kind of this I think quiet heartache as a parent to know that that is going on when they may not always be aware of it.
But one of the things I mentioned is that very often people on the spectrum will sort of focus on something almost hyper-focus if that’s the correct language and that sometimes as a parent.
for example, if you can identify what that is and you can connect with them in a way maybe never before possible it could be a friend doing that also a relative, a teacher an employer but then also identifying that skill or that high level of interest in something and then putting it transferring it coaching it so that it becomes a transferable very employable skill.
Yeah, I think as parents we want our kids to be well-rounded so it seems counterintuitive that when your child is so focused on one subject matter or repetitive that that is the thing you have to throw everything at yet to indulge it.
Okay, so I’m telling you a little story with our cousin’s son Harry his thing was trains right so my cousin wife Margaret found out that if she made math about trains he would spend more time on it.
Rather than reading let’s say in a signed book in first grade, he read Thomas books and he surprised his classmates because they didn’t think he could read but he could read a Thomas book if it was something he was interested in he’d spend more time so we took that as that’s kind of the there sauce of our program is give them their own subject matter and they’ll spend more time learning and focused on it.
