It’s Called a Spectrum For a Reason
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Book1A few months ago I met a fellow autism mom through social networking. We shared a poop story (don’t ask; it’s an autism thing) and had a good laugh. I immediately liked her.

The following week we both posted about being published in a new autism anthology called Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum. (You can learn more about that here.) We joked about it being a small world and promised to read the other’s story when the book came out.

In late March I received my box from Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing containing ten pristine copies of the new book. I admired the cover and immediately flipped through to locate my work. In the process, I stumbled across the other woman’s story and remembered our conversation. I made myself some lunch and sat down to read.

I didn’t get far.

Her story was about an urgent care visit with her sick (and autistic) son. He was nine, just like my daughter. They sat down in the packed waiting room and he entertained himself by reading—reading!—a book on gravity and photons.

Just the fact that this autistic kid could talk and ask questions about gravity and photons depressed me. But he was reading too. Katie still can’t identify most letters in the alphabet when taken out of order. I immediately sunk into a tremendous wave of fear and despair.

I learned long ago not to compare Katie to her typically functioning peers, and there’s a certain relief in that. I’m free from the competitiveness and intensity I often observe in other parents. But it had always been safe to benchmark Katie with the other children in her special day class. While one might talk more, he might also have more gross motor delays. It all seemed to balance out, and I was okay with that.

The children I encountered in the book exhibited a much broader range of skills than the ones in Katie’s class. I checked the story again. No, her son did not have Asperger’s. He was autistic just like Katie. Clearly he was far more verbal, and this made me feel both sad and angry.

It didn’t matter that I’d managed to get Katie transferred into a better autism program in another school district. It didn’t matter that she was making excellent progress. It didn’t matter that Barb, a retired special education teacher, had offered to tutor Katie in reading and had put a great deal of thought into how to structure a customized program. Or that I was doing everything I could to help my daughter.

It didn’t even matter that I knew Katie tends to learn one thing at a time and she was clearly working on conjunctions and pronouns and multisyllabic words and mastering the songs in music class. Not to mention learning to follow directions and read social cues when mainstreamed with her typically functioning peers.

I wanted her to read and discuss photons too.

I wallowed in guilt and sorrow for several hours. Then Katie came home from school and helped me pull weeds in the front yard. She really, truly helped and stuck with the task until we were done. Progress! A neighbor stopped by to ask about grant writing. We stood on the driveway talking while Katie waited patiently on the front steps. When her in-home therapist arrived, she walked over to his car and greeted him without any prompting. “You know,” Kathy said, “She’s doing amazingly well. A year or two ago, she couldn’t have done any of this.”

“Yeah, but she still can’t read.”

Kathy shrugged. “There are adults who can’t read, and they don’t have autism. There’s plenty of time for that.”

I studied her face. “You think so?”

“Sure,” Kathy said. “Reading is simple compared to social skills.”

Katie walked up and tapped me on the arm like the therapist recently taught her to do. “Mommy, come inside with Juan and you … Juan and Katie … Juan and ME!”

I slapped her five and Kathy laughed. “I’m telling you, reading will be simple.”

Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. Even if it’s not, I bet that kid in the story can’t do one-armed push ups like Katie. :)

Until next time,
Cynthia Patton

About Cynthia J. Patton

Writer, Editor, Advocate, Speaker, Special Needs Attorney, and Autism Mom. Also the Founder and Chairperson of Autism A to Z, a nonprofit providing resources and solutions for life on the spectrum.
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