SOA Gifts of Autism

The Gifts of Autism

I was recently sent a tweet from Ryan McTavish, a brilliant and talented drummer who also happens to be Autistic. He asked me to watch his talent show performance video to raise positive awareness for Autism. Being a musician myself, I was beyond blown away by the gifts of this young man.

Before going any further with my thoughts and musings, here is the video he sent me:

Amazing, right?

This video made me think more about the gifts of Autism. Of course I see them in my son every day; I brag about him all the time!

He used to play online games, and then one day he was messing around and pulled up the code for the game. He changed some formulas and scripts and said, “Look, Mom! When I change this to <blah blah blah numbers and letters I don’t understand> the background of the game changes!”

This spawned a creative interest that resulted in him writing his own custom video games, filming his screen while showing custom “tips and tricks” and posting it all on his YouTube channel as a tutorial.

Gifts vs. Deficits

I currently train Emergency Responders and businesses how to recognize, respond to and best communicate with people with Autism. I love this career I’ve created for myself and am blessed to be doing something that truly makes a difference in people’s lives.

The part I don’t like as much is that I have to stay somewhat focused on the deficits and challenges faced every day by those on the Spectrum. I educate on Sensory Processing issues, communication struggles, missed social cues, muscle development issues, and more.

It’s great that I’m bringing awareness and action into businesses and public safety. But what they don’t get to see are all the gifts I experience on a daily basis from raising my son.  They don’t know how kind and good-natured he is, or how innocently he views the world. He marches to his own beat and knows what is in his best alignment.

He sings and hums all day long. He gets on Skype and teaches new friends how to play and build in Minecraft. He hugs the dogs and tells them they’re beautiful. He always kills spiders for his terrified older sister, no matter how much she teased him or yelled at him minutes earlier. He offers the last cookie before taking it. He delights in taking walks and gets excited about Nutella sandwiches.

He sees the world so differently than I do, and I am grateful that I get to go into his world and catch glimpses of his perspective as often as I do.

Yes, I want to help him with his challenges. Yes, I want to help him be more independent. Yes, I want to support and teach him about making it in the world. And I do all of these things. But most of all, I am the one learning from him. And that’s the greatest gift of all.

What gifts of Autism are you most thankful for? Share by commenting below or posting to the SOA Facebook page or on Twitter using #GiftsOfAutism!

Autism: What Would You Change?

As a parent of a child with Autism, I can certainly think of some of my child’s struggles or issues that I would love to be resolved. But I never really stopped to think… is this what my child wants?

We had an exciting weekend of “firsts” that opened my eyes in more ways than one.

This past weekend brought an amazing opportunity to attend the Canine Companions for Independence graduation and puppy matriculation ceremony… at Sea World! It was our first time there, my son’s first ride on a “big boy” roller coaster (and boy what a scary first coaster – he rode Manta!), my daughter’s first experience with Dramamine and extreme car sickness (poor bubbelah!), the first long car trip with an old friend that’s never been in a car with children for that long, and the first time I asked my son directly how he felt about having Autism.

The conversation looked like this:

“Mom? When I get older will I still have Autism inside of me?” (it’s great how he knows he is not his diagnosis)

“I’m not really sure, sweetie – no one knows what the future holds. But I was wondering, what do you like about having Autism?”

“Everything!”

“That’s awesome! How about what you don’t like? What’s really hard for you?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing at all? Not hearing loud noises or having your body hurt sometimes?”

“Nope!”

How could this be? What about all the times we’ve gotten kicked out of public places? What about all his sensory issues? What about the screaming and crashing and spinning? It made me think: this is his norm. He doesn’t know life any other way. Could I be the one that struggles and has issues with his Autism? I was certainly frustrated when we were face to face with a magnificent polar bear and all he could see and talk about was that the child next to him had the coveted 3DS!

Could my perception of his problems really be that his behavior is not fitting into a preconceived

My little Wednesday Addams

image I’m holding for him? Do I assume he needs help sometimes when he’s just fine?

I’m not saying he doesn’t need support or that this road is easy for any of us, don’t misunderstand. In fact, I’m quite certain Justin’s sister was secretly hoping the roller coaster would shake the Autism right out of him :) But I like to question my limiting beliefs and viewpoints from time to time to see if there are any that are no longer serving me. These questions certainly helped me take a closer look at acceptance.

As we were leaving the pool following our little chat, Justin looked up and exclaimed, “Mom! It’s a beautiful nine-tenths moon out tonight!”

And I realized then that maybe he was right. I would not change a thing about him either, Autism or not.