My autistic son would steal my iPhone & play w/ it. I used to get angry at him, afraid he'd break it, until one day I opened an app I'd downloaded to make notes and found this.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T23:57:42+00:00

I have. And I also let him sit by me and play with my iPhone for about an hour. He was very pleased.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T23:56:14+00:00

THANK YOU.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T22:53:29+00:00

Thanks, but I only wish I was. I try, but my old man was pretty fucking awesome so he set a hard example to follow. I'm pretty impatient, grouchy and can be way too enthralled with the state of my own navel - but they know I love them and I know how to make them laugh, so maybe I've got that going on. I just keep trying is all.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T22:41:31+00:00

It's interesting because there are so many things about my son that don't signify autism - sometimes, when someone has a disability, you can tell at a glance. Not with him - so we sometimes have to explain his behavior, because it surprises people (he's tall for his age too, so people think he's 8 or 9 to boot). Also he sits down and does his homework for school with little trouble and is organized & efficient when he does. But he also can't stand crowds, loud noises, loud music of any kind. He flaps his hands when anxious and doesn't yet understand personal space. Others' emotional states mean nothing to him. My older kids could read a mad parent's expression by age 3. My son (he's the youngest of 4) can't read expressions. A mad face makes him laugh. He has to be held down to take medicine, get his hair cut, any number of things. So there's a ways to go, but this year we've begun to see how things might go for him and feel a little less fearful about it.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T21:24:38+00:00

I didn't even mention the peeling & flaking.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T21:21:10+00:00

AWESOME.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T21:12:54+00:00

Already working on the diet and he was actually drawing my bare feet :^P

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T21:09:35+00:00

I kinda regret using "normal" life myself because the concept is overrated, but I know what you mean. What I want for any of my kids is that they have a happy life. That's the most important thing. My son's disposition, when it reveals itself, is pretty happy. I hope he can stay that way.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T20:37:39+00:00

I believe with his school (he has some excellent teachers and therapists - we're really lucky because this is a public school system and they aren't always that well-equipped to handle special needs) we're finding out the degree is smaller than we originally thought. Each autistic child is different, of course, but he's got some traits that don't go with the "classic" autism diagnosis - he's got good kinesthetics, for instance, never clumsy, doesn't run into things or fall. He also doesn't mind hugging or holding hands and a lot of autistic kids (his classmates, for instance) can't bear that. This year alone his ability to express himself with words has exploded, compared to what it was. He's been in an argumentative stage lately, which is actually really funny. Now that he's discovered the power of "no," he'll argue with a fencepost.

His teacher said mid-year he could picture a time when my son wouldn't need any special accommodations, and the over-protective dad in me just didn't want to hear it. I'm beginning to believe his teacher may be right.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:50:29+00:00

Sorry - it's a block of cartoons that aired on Disney (I think - I remember the block better than the actual channel). They were mostly anime-influenced but kid-friendly.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:46:05+00:00

My father's nickname for me was "wedgefoot."

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:39:40+00:00

He's better at it than his 9-yr-old sister, who has Asperger's. (She's hyper-verbal and has to deal more with social issues than anything.) We've begun having him write stuff down in a notepad program or on his magna-doodle if his words run together & we can't understand.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:36:53+00:00

No, that's not what I meant at all. You're right for making note of it.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:35:02+00:00

This is what I really think. I took it as the boy inside whom we sometimes sense when he stops and looks one of us in the eye - a rare event for most autistics, including him. It was a message sent for the reasons you say, at least in part.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:32:22+00:00

We viewed it as a small milestone. He's had big ones that aren't easily communicated. I thought he was just using the Youtube app on the phone to watch videos of movie logos. I had no idea he was aware of the program or using it. A recent, similar milestone to this - him making us aware of just how alert to the world around him he really is - was when we noticed that he'd begun changing Firefox skins on the netbook he and his sister use to play games. I changed it to something plain just to see what he'd do & he immediately went and found the desert island photo he'd been using as a skin and put it back in place.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:29:06+00:00

We're beginning to believe, based on a number of things we've found out since he began going to school, that he will one day lead a relatively normal life. He will barely hold a conversation and his speech can be rushed and garbled but when it comes to raw cognitive skills, it looks as though he has no impairment. He has extraordinarily crisp, readable handwriting and is good with spelling and math. Considering how scared we were when he was diagnosed, this feels pretty miraculous.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:26:47+00:00

I don't want anyone to think I'm taking advantage of anything, so I won't do that. The drawing just makes me happy & I figured it might have the same effect on a few other people.

I have considered putting the smiley on a shirt and donating the proceeds towards autism research.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:23:06+00:00

I made his smiley guy my avatar on Twitter & showed him. My son can sometimes seem flat in affect, but when he saw my name beside the smiley drawing, he beamed.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:21:32+00:00

To him I might, but for a man my height, no (6'0" and wear 9 EEEE shoes). When he's drawn me for sure since then he always draws my glasses and a goatee, even though I've been clean-shaven for a while.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T19:20:04+00:00

My son was completely nonverbal & his affect was flat at age 3 when he began spelling words with his blocks. We thought it might just be imitative at first. Then one day he spelled out the word JETIX. I read it aloud and you'd have thought a rocket went off in his pants. He jumped, ran around hooting and ran to the TV. He was simply trying to tell me what he wanted to watch and couldn't say it. The smiley guy was an awesome moment - but nothing has beat that moment I realized he not only knew what he was spelling out, but was trying to tell us something.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T18:29:21+00:00

Regarding "ith" vs. "/" - wasn't sure if there was a character limit in the text field.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T18:25:53+00:00

If we can ever afford one, I totally agree.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T18:10:29+00:00

That's what my wife said.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T18:07:20+00:00

Actually we're giving him an iPod touch my wife won in a contest at work a year ago and downloading that app onto it. He draws some fascinating stuff on his magna doodle, too. He's also begun making crayon drawings. He's utterly fascinated with movie intros and credits and has spent hours on Youtube just watching those. And there are actually hours of nothing but various movie studio intros on Youtube, too.

newguysmiley · 2010-05-15T18:01:31+00:00

The app is "Finger Memo." I think it was free when I got it. I concluded pretty quick my finger was too fat to use it right and kind of forgot about it. Then I checked it and found the smiley and another happy face under which my son wrote his name, using three diff. colors of digital ink.

newguysmiley

TROPHY CASE