‘Anguished’, ‘Annoyed’, and ‘Hurt’ are the emotions parents of autistic children feel acutely, when people mistake autism for some kind of disease and start behaving indifferent with their kids. It has become the need of the hour to cast aside assumptions and understand autism. So, it is imperative to debunk the myths associated with kids on the spectrum, in order to make them live a life of reasonable independence. Do you think you knew it all? Test your knowledge with the following myths related to autism:
1. Autistic kids are mentally retarded - Problem is not with these kids; problem is with people who have such mentalities towards children on the spectrum. Most people think that if children are not behaving savants, they are the exact opposite! However, several studies have debunked the myth that children on the spectrum are mentally retarded. Though some kids on the spectrum are difficult to test as compared to others, they do not lack in intelligence.
Rachel's just lying in her room all day unless I take her to an appointment. She doesn't respond to me - won't answer questions. Is she going to stay unresponsive like this?? Is it the depression...and can we overcome it? What triggered the depression? bullying? most likely..at high school.
I hate seeing my beautiful daughter like this and I'm scared out of my mind about her future.
Sad. Overwhlemed. Anxious. Relieved. Depressed. Apprehensive. Uncertain. Affirmed. - These are my emotions after leaving the develpmental pediatrician's office today.
What did I do? What didn't I do? What can I do? Will she be OK? Will she grow up to lead a productive life? Will she continuously struggle through school? Why did I wait so long to seek a second opinion when I knew in my gut that something "was different" about her? Was it the fancy vitamins I took during pregnancy? Did I not control my sugars well enough through my gestational diabetes? Was it the vaccines that I was assured that were safe? What about that reaction to the MMR? But she's "high functioning", right? What if my husband doesn't agree? Where do I start? What does she need from me that I am not giving her? Can I give her what she needs? Am I a good mother? - Questions I had when I left the doctor's office today.
These days most of us have become more informal in our choice of words and expressions. Slangs, puns, innuendos and many other literary tropes dominate our usual talks. But, here we are not talking about “us”; here we are focusing on how figurative language can pose a daunting challenge for the autistic mind. A majority of children with autism interpret words and sentences quite literally. They are often unable to “read between the lines”, so to speak, which is why it is important to talk with them in simple and plain language.
Say for example, Dr Paul Jones told Natalie that she had “stomach bug”, when what the doctor really wanted to mean was “stomach virus”. Now Natalie’s 6-year-old son Todd, who is on the spectrum, looked visibly worried as he presumably envisioned an alien-like creature crawling around her mother’s intestine. Though it may sound hilarious for people like us, for children with autism it is really not funny!
