It may be the coldest winter here in recent memory, but the parlor of Lauree, George and Jael Head is as cozy as its hosts are congenial. As I visited Lauree there late last week to discuss her appointment as chair of a regional advisory committee on autism, I couldn’t help but notice the marked contrast between the outgoing woman I came to interview and the asocial character of the impairment she is helping state lawmakers understand. The extroverted mother of a 12-year-old afflicted with autism will be the first to admit that the developmental disorder is hard to get your head around because it expresses itself so differently from one person to the next. However, the common thread that, according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), impairs an autistic child’s ability to learn and socialize amounts to a communication breakdown. In varying degrees, the autistic lack the ability to recognize and respond to the myriad of verbal and nonverbal cues that make it possible for people to connect in a sustained, meaningful way. Add to that inability the belief among the autistic that everyone is thinking exactly what they are and you have the makings of a very limited conversation. Autism often reveals itself for the first time at that critical juncture in development when children usually realize others don’t think and feel what they do (later, a normally developing child will imagine what others think of them as separate entities, giving birth to a self-concept). According to child psychologist Andrew Meltzoff, the “terrible twos” occur when youngsters “hypothesize their parents have independent minds and then, like proper scientists, set out to test it.” Unfortunately, the autistic can independently make neither that educated guess nor the one that leads to self-concept formation. Left to themselves, they can easily retreat into an inner world where ritualistic behavior predominates and preoccupation with parts precludes an understanding of the whole. Another of autism’s great mysteries is a disconnect between thought and emotion (i.e., the autistic child struggles with understanding what others want but may feel empathy nonetheless). “Processing information can take a long time,” observes Lauree, who makes a regular practice of offering Jael a couple of response choices after asking her a question so that response possibilities are more manageable. Sensory overload from the surrounding environment is just another of the many obstacles with which the autistic must learn to cope.
Brookfield, Mo. —
