Insight into Autism

I’m writing this from my couch where I’ve been draped for the last week. Gotta love the flu. Here’s an interesting view into living with autistic people.

I have eight kids, six of them affected to some degree with autism. My youngest, a sweet completely normal girl, has given me the most interesting insight into children’s development. She is the only one to have normal social and verbal development. (I have another daughter who had hearing loss as a baby and ended up in speech therapy to learn how to hear most consonants.) I never realized how odd my children were until my youngest came along.

One Saturday, my youngest found me, throwing herself across my lap. “No one will play with me,” she complained, like a little drama queen.

“Your brothers *are* playing with you,” I answered. “Legos and computer games. They even said they’d play cards with you.”

“No, mom,” she explained. “They aren’t playing *with* me, they’re playing *next* to me.”

I laughed as I realized she was correct. My sons are still very much into parallel play - playing next to each other, even the same activity, but not much interaction and definitely no eye contact, only the occasional comment that may or may not have anything to do with the context of the activity.

Leave it to a 5yo to see clearly.