A Tear in The Eye

In the midst of all my ranting and raving over the weekend (which made me feel a lot better) I haven’t yet mentioned something touching that happened on Friday.

The company where I am temping are very much into diversity and often have guest speakers in over the lunch times.

On Friday it was the turn of a lovely woman named Anne who came in to talk about Asperger’s Syndrome.    Her son Bobby has Asperger’s but wasn’t diagnosed until he was 19 years old.

Although her own husband is a Doctor, he specialised in diabetes and so didn’t know much about the condition, therefore never picked up on it.  It only came about when a patient with Asperger’s was referred to him and he had to do some research to ensure that he treated them correctly.

It was only then that he realised his own son had the same condition.

Anne described what it was like for Bobby growing up and how some of the most basic tools we pick up on as children didn’t happen for him.  For example,  he couldn’t read facial expressions, therefore he didn’t know how to react to people and he didn’t like change.  Yet this remarkable young boy went to University and is now holding down a job. 

It was a very emotional subject especially for those of us who have children.  It’s hard enough being a parent these days but to be faced with knowing that throughout his childhood and growing up there was always something not quite right, but not really knowing what it was, must have been heartbreaking.

And of course, Bobby looked ‘normal’.  It was his behaviour that was different to other children. Anne said that to take him to places such as the supermarket was a trial because people just labelled him as a ‘naughty child’.

The work she’s had to put in to making his life easier is incredible.  She told a story of how Bobby was given a job in a big company and one day he just went missing.  The staff obviously knew that Bobby had Asperger’s and had managed to settle him really well into a routine.

They became worried and literally had a search party looking for him.  He turned up safely at home having walked miles.  It turned out that Bobby was great with his job. The part of the day that he couldn’t cope with was the break times, when everyone congregated in the staff canteen.

It was too much for him. He couldn’t deal with the interaction.  Anne had to get her thinking cap on quick to ensure that it didn’t spoil his job and came up with the suggstion of him reading a newspaper at break times, as he would be able to ‘hide’ behind a paper.

He could then have his break with everyone but not have to worry about ‘reading’ the people around him.

Not one person left that room without being touched by the story and to be honest many had a tear in their eye.  One of the senior managers, a man, actually began to break down at the end of the talk, when thanking Anne for her time - that’s how it had affected him.

It was a fantastic opportunity to meet Anne.  To open our eyes to this topic was excellent and to try and be a little less judgemental about people that may seem ‘different’ to us.

Like Anne said ‘we all do it’.  If people don’t react to us in the way we expect, we label them as odd.  We can’t help it.  But because there is such a wide spectrum with Asperger’s and Autism  it means people can have very mild symptoms to very severe.  We should therefore take the time to think about our own reactions.

And if this got you interested, please take a look at A Parallel Universe on this site.  Lizzie who writes for teafriendsandchocolate has a son who is severely autistic which puts a whole different slant on parenting. 

She has some wonderful stories to tell over the coming months, so please check in and take a look. 

Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on another talk I was fortunate to go to today all about Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.

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Assessment time

When I had my first child, M, I had to learn about what was available locally for young children. I had just given up work and we had not been living in the area for long, so I also had to make new friends. Some of my best friends now were met in those mother and baby groups fifteen years ago.

When S arrived it should have been straightforward. The local pre-school playgroup was very popular so I put his name on the waiting list at birth. From the very beginning I took him along to mother and toddler groups with M. He had plenty of chances to socialise with babies his own age but he could not cope with it and would get very distressed. It became a struggle to take M out and cope with S.

Once he started to see the specialist speech therapist at the hospital his name was put down for an assessment and therapy group there each week. It was a lovely supportive small group for both kids and parents, but S hated that too. He had no idea how to play and would cling to my lap. He hated the noise. Instead of just feeling the dried pasta shapes he ate them and painted his face rather than the paper. He wouldn’t go on the climbing frame if any other child was on it  and refused to wear an apron for art or water play.

I knew that he and the others were there to be assessed over a period of time for autism. But some of the parents were unaware of this fact, so the ‘A’ word was never used…

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