Knowing Nothing About Autism

A commenter under the moniker of “Rainmanretired” posted this about the Q & A on autism and what John McCain said that was posted on Newsweek yesterday:

Kristina said she knew nothing about autism before she had a son with it, I was wondering just how she expected John McCain to know all about it? No he probably doesn’t know what all the differents’s are between all the different things that effect children BUT he wants to help ALL not just autism children. …….

I thought of this very question as I was talking during the interview about how I indeed “knew nothing about autism” before my son was diagnosed. I had barely heard, let alone thought of, the word “autism” before daycare teachers and an “evaluator” let the word slide past their lips, like a most furtive message. “Autism”: The word was always uttered in reverent tones of dread and the only proper response to hearing it seemed to be “oh no, not that, please not that, please not that!”

I was given pamphlets that I only read when I found them a year later, under a stack of cards and magazines and files on the dining room table. One—it was a light purple, with a drawing of little children standing hand in hand at the bottom—had a title like “About Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.” Such a huge mouthful of a term, I thought, vague words, unhelpful, alien.

It was the au-word. Autism. The word was familiar to me for one reason only that I have to blush about: I teach Latin and ancient Greek to college students and autos, autê, auto is ancient Greek for “he, she, it,” for “self” and for “same.” And yes, for a mother who’d newly learned that her toddler “had autism,” being a translator of poetry from ancient dead languages seemed about the most useless occupation in the world.

Like many mothers and fathers who learn their child is autistic, I responded by throwing myself into learning everything I could about autism. I took a leave from my job, resigned from the job, stayed at home overseeing Charlie’s education, packed up our household to move back to New Jersey, and got two part-time jobs in fields other than what I had trained in, wondered whether (as more than a few parents wonders after raising autistic child and thinking about autism day in, day out, and in one’s dreams) I should become a teacher or therapist for autistic children.

I chose not to and, after some years, found my way back to teaching Latin and ancient Greek. Most (all) mothers (and parents) of special needs children have their hands more than full whether they have a job outside the house—-we’re all working mothers. Whatever my views about the politics of presidential candidates and autism, the choice of Sarah Palin has brought an issue I think all the time of—being a working mother of a special needs child—into the national discussion, and I appreciate this very much.

I often feel I’d have more than enough to do if I just had my job, or if I were “just” the mother of a boy with a lot of needs. Doing both “jobs” (motherhood’s not so much a “job” to me, as a way of being) has real benefits. I’m a teacher, to, and struggle to figure out how to best teach and motivate my students, and sometimes feel baffled when, despite my and their every effort, they “just don’t seem to get it”—-that tells me I have to change something I’m doing. On a more pragmatic level, knowing about autism, about Asperger’s syndrome, about learning disabilities, about ADD and ADHD, has made me much more attuned to the diversity (in all senses of that word, including neurodiversity) in my own classroom.

For doing my best by Charlie and by my students, knowing about autism has made a real difference. Without knowing about autism, and these past 11-plus years of taking care of Charlie, I don’t think I would be as good a teacher (not that I’m sure of how good a teacher I’m judged to be). I regret that I didn’t know anything about autism or special education or different pedagogical models and methodologies until I had Charlie.

And, just to be a bit polemical (political, even), it seems to me that an understanding of disability and of difference is something to be looked for in a teacher, in a leader……….even in a future President.

For me, still a lot more to learn.