Charlie’s School Is Closing (#245)
Charlie woke up at 5am and ran into our room, his face joyful and eyes screwed up in a grin. He chatted and curled up in his big blue blanket until 7.15am and hopped out onto the “red school-bus,” green apple in a baggie. His teacher was on vacation last week and he had said … Continue reading
Dirt and Gold (#244)
“I want to eat green apple!” A six-word complete sentence said by Charlie on his own this morning. It was a year and a half ago that our old friend and speech language pathologist Tara visited us from Ireland, where she was working at an autism school. She set up a speech program for Charlie … Continue reading
The Art and Science of Autism (#243)
Charlie has been talking a lot and very clearly and spontaneously these past few days, and also connecting a lot socially and emotionally with other people. He said tons of mands during his verbal behavior session this afternoon. Towards the end, he walked over to Miss Cindy, sat on her lap, and gave her a … Continue reading
A Little Autism Magic (#241)
“Kiss!” smiled Charlie, eyes wrinkling as, laughing, he wrapped his arms around his departing ABA therapist. “Mmmuh!” (Smack.) “Mmmuh!” (Smack.) “Bye Charlie,” the therapist smiled back from the doorframe, just as the 11-year-old daughter of Charlie’s babysitter had a few hours earlier. “Really hyper today,” her mom had noted of Charlie (who at that point … Continue reading
Another Boy in the Water (#240)
Since Charlie had only one speech therapy session today (his other speech session was cancelled as the therapist had a medical appointment) and that one session was earlier than usual (because the other children were ill), we went swimming after dinner. At the pool, Charlie ran ahead of me and–when I paused to speak to … Continue reading
Earthquake (#239)
Tornados, hurricanes, Nor’easters: More than a few times people have told me, "I can deal with those but—-earthquakes? You Californians can have them!" This line of reasoning strikes me as similar to a conversation I once heard on a playground between two women: "My child has X and goes through so much but at least … Continue reading
A Rocking Lullaby (the Autismland Theme Song) (#237)
My parents gave Charlie an iPod music player last year. After several years of trying to rub and scrape fingerprints and gunk off the bottoms of CD’s and of rewinding yards of tape back into cassettes after Charlie had pulled it out (laughing all the way), the little device has proved a good solution. As … Continue reading
Recognition Now! (#236)
The ancient Greek word anagignôskô means “I read” as well as “I know again, I know well, I know for sure: gignôskô on its own means “I know” and the prefix ana means (most basically) “up” and also “throughout.” Ana strengthens the force of the word following it and can thus imply repeated action, so … Continue reading
We Go With Him by kristina chew 