Making Conversation

No matter how much you love your child, there are always going to be some rough weeks where the autistic behavior and lack of communication can really get you down.  We've had a lot of those this summer, so this past week has really been a breath of fresh air.

When I pick up Matt from school, I always ask him how his day was.  Typically there is no response to that question, and I feel like I am carrying on a one-sided conversation the whole way home.  This week, however, Matt has been answering that question with a lot of enthusiasm:  

• I had fun at school today!
• It was a great day at school with Brycen!
• I like my teachers!

We learned that he doesn't tell us about his day like a neurotypical kid would.  If we ask Nathan a direct question about his day, he can give us a direct answer.  For instance, "Nathan, tell me about your day."  "It was fun.  I did a lot of coloring today, and I chased the dog.  She was barking at a squirrel!"

Matthew will not answer quite so directly, but we learned that he does tell us about his day, by "parroting" things he heard his teachers or peers say throughout the day.  We realized that by quoting his teachers verbatim, he is telling us what went on at school, things that were funny or important to him that he wants us to know.  This week we have heard him say:

• Do you need to sit in the hallway? Yes! (I'm guessing he was telling me that he got in trouble)
• Are you ready? brushy, brushy, brushy (I'm guessing he's telling me about having body brushing done today)
• It's Brycen's turn to pull the wagon (apparently Matthew was monopolizing the toys)
• No sleeping at school! (hmmm.... either this was a game, or he was very tired today!)  

Since realizing that he was using echolalia to try and tell me about his day, I've been able to engage him in conversation a lot more effectively.  It seems to be a big boost to his self confidence when he realizes that mom actually understands what he is saying and wants to talk about it.  This self confidence has encouraged him to start making more verbal requests in the past couple days.  Today it was, "Mom, can I have some peanut butter?"  Such a simple phrase, but this was one of the very few times I've ever heard him call my name to get my attention.  Of course I gave him some peanut butter!

To top it off, we continued one-to-one conversation last night by making faces in the mirror together.  This is something that Nate and Audrey have both liked from babyhood, but Matt had never shown any interest in until last night.  We were making angry faces, silly faces, surprised faces, sleepy faces, sick faces, and his favorite - scared faces.  He was using sign language and making very animated expressions as he told me that he was scared of the alligator (daddy took him in an alligator bouncy house a couple weeks ago).  Matt was really into it and giggled his head off when he saw what he was doing in the mirror and how funny his face looked.   I'm looking forward to many more silly evenings making faces in the mirror with my little dude!


Make no mistake; Matthew is still autistic, and in being autistic, he still has some peculiar, often frustrating behaviors, but these things are trivial in comparison to the pure joy of two-way communication with your child!

Difficult Encounter

Today was a very difficult day for me, but not for the usual reasons.  I work as a pediatric physician assistant and part of my job is monitoring normal growth and development.  I met a child a little younger than Matt-man with many classic signs of autism today.  Usually when parents share concerns about autistic-like behaviors with me, they've already seriously entertained autism as a possibility and are almost expecting the referral to get a further workup.  This family was different.  They had no idea that this was a real possibility.  The "A" word had briefly entered their thoughts, but never seriously.  They were in for a routine sick visit and mentioned some of his unusual behaviors as an afterthought.  After a very long discussion and more probing I had few doubts that their child was probably on the spectrum, and I really didn't want to tell them.  I remember keenly the feelings of shock and grief that I had experienced when first going through the diagnostic process with Matthew and those feelings resurfaced today when I looked into their eyes.  I teared up along with them as we discussed the long medical and educational diagnostic / therapeutic process that awaited them.  They have such a beautiful intelligent child with such a long difficult road ahead  - just like our little Matt-man.  I have prayed for them a lot this evening - that God will give them peace and strength through this all.