The CDC says that 1 in 110 children have autism, and the figure for boys is 1 in 70. So where are they all? It seems like I see 110 kids in just one trip to Target. On average, like 105 of them are screaming their heads off, but not because they're autistic. Where all our autistic brethren be?
It's not like I don't recognize the signs. I just never see any of them out and about. We were just at Yorktown yesterday where there were tons of kids...if the statistics are correct, there should have been at least one other kid keeping Audrey company flapping her arms at the bottom of the escalator.
There was the one time that we were at McDonalds and I saw a boy that appeared to be autistic, but I wasn't sure when I saw a woman using sign language with him. He seemed to be able to hear and speak, but did demonstrate some autistic behaviors. I struck up a conversation with the woman who confirmed that he was indeed autistic, and she explained that, even though he could hear perfectly well, they used sign language because it seemed more effective for him as his "receptive" language. Meaning that he was more likely to pay attention and follow instructions that were signed rather than spoken to him. I had never heard of such a thing, and immediately felt guilty for not having tried this approach with Audrey.
But my feelings of inadequacy didn't end there. This woman looked like a million bucks...smokin' bod, stylish clothes, perfectly coiffed. She could not have possibly been his mother. Besides her physical appearance, she also appeared to bring far too much energy to the situation to be his mother. She was all over him -- signing to him, engaging him, and redirecting him from repetitive behaviors -- while I sat there watching Audrey repeatedly drop an air hockey puck into the goal slot with my face covered in cinnamon melt. I rationalized that she must be a therapist who had him on a community outing. Then I heard him call her “Mommy”. Doh! Why wasn't I wearing size 0 skinny jeans and stiletto-heeled shabooties? Why did I always look like Glen Campbell's mug shot, while she looked like....that?
Something didn't smell right, and it wasn't just my unwashed hair. She claimed that her son attended a Downers Grove public school, but didn't seem familiar with any of the teachers, programs, or administrators that I mentioned. And there was something that I just couldn't put my finger on that gave her an air of detachment.
Finally, she rounded up her son and said that she had to go...wanted to beat the traffic up to Grayslake. Where she lives. Fifty miles away from where her son lives. A-HA! I knew it. Before I could pry into the circumstances that led to this living arrangement, she was off. Hey, I could look that good too if I lived an hour and a half away from Audrey. Well, maybe not that good. I would probably have to enact my fake-my-own-death plan and get a hell of a lot further away than 50 miles to look that good. But I would look better for sure. I would at least be upgraded from Glen Campbell’s mug shot to Joyce DeWitt’s.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: autism, glen campbell, joyce dewitt, specialneeds
Oh, gawd, do NOT feel bad. Also - those stats? Yeah, they include kids like my son, who aren't "noticeably" effected. Asperger's isn't it's own dx anymore, either...sadly enough. They're including kids (like mine) and sometimes, I worry that it will mean less help for those kids who need it more.
Also - I HATE the play area at Yorktown.....I nearly smacked another mom there for how she treated my son. I stopped going because he was treated so poorly by other parents there.
I try to avoid the mall, but sometimes we get desperate in the winter months. It's such a tiny, cramped play area and the kids are generally maniacs and the parents completely inattentive to their kids that are climbing up the slide from the bottom or tear-assing around and knocking the other kids down like bowling pins. We tend to go from Mrs. Field's to the bulk candy store to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory...these are her rewards for enduring a hair cut at Snippets :)
We are lucky that our 10 year old no longer requires bribery for hair cuts, new shoes, new clothing.....used to be a holy terror about ANYTHING new....the bulk store is definitely the reward for my monsters if they don't kill each other while we shop....