I’ve noted frequently that Charlie is taller than me. But several months (maybe even a year) before I started to find myself looking up to him, I realized that Charlie’s were longer than mind. He’s always had long, tapering fingers since he was born; he  never has a problem reaching an octave on the piano. According to a recent study noted in Science Daily, those long fingers are also a marker for voluntary exercise:

According to a joint University of Alberta/ University of California- Riverside research study, there is a direct correlation between digit length and voluntary exercise.

The study also casts some doubt on a previously released study which linked digit length and male aggression.

While both situations were first thought to have been caused by exposure to elevated levels of prenatal testosterone in the womb, research conducted using lab mice yielded no concrete evidence to support that original hypothesis.

The new study, conducted using 1,000 white mice, seems to support a stronger connection between digit length, voluntary exercise and high levels of prenatal stress hormones, which was indicated by the difference in activity level between the control mice and the selectively-bred active mice.

Maybe that’s a reason why Charlie, once he learned to bike and swim, has been so motivated to do these activities, along with a good share of running and pacing………

So we come home from an hour swimming at the pool and Charlie says, “Carrots, lunchbox.” And after I give the “yeah, sure,” he opens a cabinet and takes out a Ziploc. As we have no carrots, I suggest grapes, and go to empty the laundry from the dryer.

When I come back to the kitchen, Charlie is zipping up his lunchbox and talking about the schoolbus and the names of his OT and some teachers, and then puts the lunchbox in his backpack after taking out the stuff he likes to have in the backpack but that he doesn’t take to school: The photo bucket, some photo albums, picture books, the Leapster, and one of my shirts. In goes the lunchbox and he finds his red homework folder and, grinning, puts it in.

“Good night!” Off to bed.

As you know, it’s the beginning still of August and Charlie has about a month of school-less days to go. He also has his annual beach vacation starting on Saturday: Will Charlie scream and cry for the first hour, two hours, three hours, plus of being at the beach? (He did this last year as we pulled up into the rented house’s driveway.) I know he’s trying to tell me about the confusion of too much fun and awful dread to leave the beach and so how can he possibly enjoy it? Whereas, you know what to expect at school.

Charlie’s been expressing his feelings about this by saying “no beach house” and “no ocean” and “no.”

But a big ol’ “yes” to school.

Kid’s got his heart in the right place.

A new study in the May 15th Biological Psychiatry has found genetic links to the “impaired social behaviors” of autistic children. Researchers from Yale University studied six genes “known to be involved in maternal and affiliative behaviors”; they suggest that two neurohormones which are linked to affiliative behaviors in animals, prolactin and oxytocin, are linked to affiliative behaviors characteristic of autism. From Science Daily:

….One aspect of an autistic child’s impaired social abilities is their lack of affiliative behaviors, i.e., behaviors such as touching and hugging that strengthen social bonds……

n this study, Yale University researchers recruited, genotyped, and clinically assessed a large sample of autistic children and their families. They specifically examined the genetic variants in six genes known to be involved in maternal and affiliative behaviors. Dr. Elena Grigorenko, the senior author, discusses their study, “Animal studies have taught us that genetic factors can play a crucial role in the development of close affiliative ties.

“With the help of Yale’s Autism Center of Excellence, led by Drs. Ami Klin and Fred Volkmar, and many families of individuals with ASD, we have registered a possible association between some of the genes identified in animal studies as controlling affiliative behaviors in ASD.” The strongest statistical findings of the study implicate the prolactin gene, the prolactin receptor gene, and the oxytocin receptor gene in these affiliative behavior deficits.

Since he was a baby, Charlie has not been one to shrink from carrying and hugs and physical contact. He does seem very unsure about what sorts of physical gestures and contact to make to other people. He has been learning some, such as how to get someone’s attention when they are not looking at you and can’t hear you. He watches other children (often standing off to the side, looking out of the corners of his eyes) and seems to like to be around them, but rarely (as in never, pretty much) approaches them.

Last night Charlie and I went to the pool and he must have climbed the steps 25 times to go down the water slide. (Well, that’s what it felt like; I go up with him.) There were lots of children of many ages in the pool and we stayed for almost two hours, about twice as long as we usually do. Charlie often found himself splashing near a heavyset boy and the boy’s sister, who was preoccupied in throwing a pink ball to her dad who was sitting on a bench. Charlie was humming as he tends to do amid the noise of the pool and all the swimmers there (including the very competitive swim team) and the other boy seemed to be talking to Charlie, and then imitating Charlie’s underwater athletics, and then observing Charlie. The other boy got out and walked towards the stairs; Charlie got out, told me “I want green slide” and we ascended right on the heels of the other boy.

The other boy sat down to ride the green slide. Charlie walked close to him and tapped him very lightly on the chest, then walked over to the yellow slide, sat down, and both boys (both completely absorbed in the water shooting off the water slie) slid away when the lifeguard gave the word.

I went down the steps with a memory pouring back in: Charlie was 2 1/2 years old and we were walking by the Mississippi River at the end of Summit Avenue in St. Paul. There was a child a few months younger than Charlie and he started to follow the other child around, somewhat to the alarm of the parents who, a little nervously, started to move the stroller away and their child too.

It’s something to see Charlie make contact with another child.