Two Types of Autism
Ten years ago, I knew
very little about a developmental disability called Autism. In fact, my primary
source of knowledge about the subject was a 1980’s film, entitled Rainman,
starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Dustin Hoffman played a character that
was based on Kim Peek, a young adult from
As a
young teacher, my exposure to autism remained limited. I do not recall any of
my educational courses ever addressing the topic, and only once did I come in
contact with someone who had the affliction. I was substitute teaching, and I
noticed a boy in the class who had an adult aide with him. Somehow I found out
that he had autism, and I wondered if he could do that match counting trick.
However, I never talked to him, as the aide seemed to protect his boundaries
from any intrusion. He seemed like a nice enough boy, though, with no obvious
difficulties.
My
first son, Gabriel, had some difficulties as his life was beginning. When he
was born, the midwife needed to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to help
him begin breathing. His Apgar score after one minute was 4/10, but soon went
up to 9/10. His placenta was noticeably gray in one area. He started “dusking”
when he was two days old. When he was 4 days old, he turned unmistakably blue.
The La Leche League person there who was helping with nursing thought she had
just watched him die. We took him to immediate care where we discovered his
temperature to be 96 degrees Fahrenheit. The doctor checked him into the infant
intensive care unit where he stayed for a week, as he struggled to thrive
against some unexplained difficulties. He was not strong enough to even suck
from a bottle. After he’d been warmed
and tube fed for a week and potential causes were gradually ruled out, he’d
gained a pound and the blue episodes stopped. They trained us in CPR and sent
him home with all of us scratching our heads.
Within
a few years, we noticed several strange mannerisms. He loved ceiling fans. In
fact, “ceiling fan” was one of his first words, if not the first. It was
pronounced “ng-ahh,” but we knew what he meant. A spinning ceiling fan really
visually stimulated him. He would get so excited that he would open his mouth
wide and flap his hands. We also noticed that he had a relatively low
vocabulary. That can be hard to discern for a two year old, but when I called
Early Intervention to let them know my son had a vocabulary of about fifty
words, they wanted to come over.
Autism
may have been suspected at that point, but Gabriel had very good eye contact
with us, and did not seem to be in his own little world like the classic
symptoms would warrant. However, the people at Early Intervention did see
enough that they diagnosed him with something called PDD-NOS. That is
“pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified.” That is basically
when a person has some, but not all of the symptoms in order to be called true
autism. It is a term from the DSM-IV manual of psychological disorders.
However, it is not a very accurate term, as autism is a spectrum disorder, with
mild and severe cases and with many and diverse symptoms, as we were to find out
later. PDD-NOS seemed to a way for doctors not to have to use the “A” word,
possibly in an effort to let parents down easy.
Gabriel
had about two years of speech therapy, occupational therapy, and schooling
before he ever set foot in a kindergarten class. We were amazed and delighted
with the progress he made. Geri Aman, his occupational therapist, showed us
something that I think is called brush therapy. In it, we used a surgical brush
and stroked his arms and legs, and then provided ten counts of pressure against
his arm and leg joints. That did seem to help calm him down, as it took away
some of the hypersensitivity of his skin and also provided some vestibular
feedback. Camille, his speech therapist, used a little vibrating thing in his
mouth that helped strengthen up his mouth muscles and ended his drooling. Geri
and Camille were part of an extraordinary team of Early Intervention teachers,
as Gabriel learned to place the green triangle at his next workstation in the
Early Intervention program. We were lucky to get them while we could, as
Corvallis School District budget cuts soon had them looking for jobs elsewhere,
mostly in private practice. But anyway, Gabriel made remarkable progress thanks
to all of these wonderful professionals and measures.
Gabriel
had a wonderful kindergarten teacher, Clare Staton, and life skills teacher, Mo
Ruzek, who performed a miracle and helped Gabriel learn how to read. I was
astounded when I saw that happening. Gabriel’s math skills also proved to be
strong at an early age
We
met other families in the area affected by autism, and one of them gave us a
bottle of Super Nu-Thera vitamins, made by the Kirkman Company. That had been
ineffective with their child, but for Gabriel, it instantly calmed him from
some terrible tantrums, although he hated the taste. Super Nu-Thera was
formulated especially for autism, and featured a mega dose of Vitamin B-6 along
with other vitamins. It really seems to do the trick for Gabriel, although it
may not be as effective for all.
Our second
child, Silas, was born 2 ½ years after Gabriel. His early life could not have
been much more different from Gabriel’s. Whereas Gabriel was too weak to even
suck from a bottle, Silas was strikingly strong and robust, even as a newborn.
Whereas Gabriel would shriek and cry from hunger or pain, Silas was remarkably
calm as a baby, content with life.
A new
phase of Silas’s personality began to emerge as he obtained mobility. He began
to become rather destructive, as he was curious about a lot of things. In his
life, Silas has toasted audiotapes in the toaster oven, broken the handle to
the car door, broken the rear view mirror and the radio antenna on the car,
pushed the button on the television into an irretrievable spot, and other such
things. Many of these seem related to his curiosity of how things work and also
his physical strength.
Silas
began preschool early in life, since we were happy with Gabriel’s progress in
preschool. Also he adored and emulated Gabriel and it seemed like early typical
peer exposure might be a good idea. Silas seemed to really enjoy school,
enthusiastically wishing all his new school friends a hearty “Good Morning,”
out his bedroom window when he would wake up. However, about the time Silas
turned three, his enjoyment of schooling started to go downhill, as did
teachers’ enjoyment of him. He began to hit or push other kids for no apparent
reason. He was never angry with them; it was sort of like he just wanted to see
what would happen, similar to his audiotape toasting experiment. It happened in
all three of his different settings with other small kids—preschool, nursery at
church, and at the day care center at the fitness center where Sandy and I
exercised. Our sweet Silas was spending a lot of time in time out chairs, seemingly
without remorse or even recognition that he had done something wrong. He also
was having a lot of trouble staying still in circle time, as longer books were
being read. His preschool ended up asking us not to return with him, and we
soon got a refund check for our summer tuition.
As
this was happening, we were rather aware of the benefits of Early Intervention,
and we had Silas screened several times. However, each of these screenings
turned back negative, as Silas was charming with the adult test takers and
effortlessly completed some complicated jigsaw puzzles. Finally, one of the
preschool teachers wrote a report on him, and he was screened again.
Our
own theories revolved around the fact that Silas’s behavior started to go
downhill about the time of the birth of his younger sister. Silas loved his
little sister, Eve, in fact he couldn’t hold her enough when she was born.
However, he was now a middle child, with siblings on either side of him being
rather needy, and the formerly content little child now maybe felt a little
squeezed.
So while we suspected
maybe something like Attention Deficit Disorder, or even depression, we were
astounded when the diagnosis came back as autism. Silas was nothing like
Gabriel with his symptoms. There was no flapping at ceiling fans (except in
imitation of his brother’s modeled behavior), there were no screaming fits, no
drooling. There was not the same hypersensitivity; in fact, if anything, it was
hyposensitivity. Silas could get
stung by a bee; but if you didn’t see it happen, you wouldn’t know it.
Silas’s
autism was termed Asperger’s Syndrome, which can often have superior
intelligence (or at least vocabulary) with diminished social skills. It’s known
as sort of the nutty professor’s disease. But Silas did not speak in the
monotone that is characteristic of the disorder, nor did his vocabulary seem
all that superior. But again, we have accepted the fact that autism is a
spectrum disorder, with many varieties of symptoms and severities.
Silas
loves finding out how things work, and seems to appeal to the young child in
many people who are otherwise trying to do their job. He has pushed the buttons
on recycling trucks to watch the trash compactor, he has operated a dentist
chair and dentist drill, and has sat in a Boeing 737 pilot’s lap as he found
out what all the buttons of the cockpit do. He also enjoys being helpful, which
is not especially characteristic of his older sibling. He especially loves
washing people’s windows with a squeegee, whether they need it or not.
Silas
has especially benefited from our move to
Gabriel
is also continuing to do well in school. He now reads fluently, with
expression. He continues to be notably strong in math, and no longer needs an
aide to assist him in the classroom. He has come a long way from the little boy
with the echolalia speech pattern who would stand stiffly in a classroom not knowing
what to do. His current second grade teacher is not experienced in dealing with
the needs of autism, in fact, Gabriel is her first student with autism, but his
skills are more sufficient and he seems to be doing as well as his more typical
peers. Plus, he has a very skilled resource teacher and he spends some time in
his classroom as well.