Teen Autism

For homeschool, we’ve been working on a poetry unit, and Nigel is learning various literary terms. I wasn’t sure how much of it his autistic mind would be able to identify. Things are what they are; he’s a “tell-it-like-it-is” type of person. How could he understand the subtlety and ambiguity of metaphor? I decided that simile would be an easier place to start, with its concrete formula for identification: a comparison of two things using “like” or “as.” His early attempts, tall as a tree and sticky like glue, lacked flair, but we kept at it.

After a long day of homeschool, social skills class at the middle school, and chores, Nigel (who was probably up late last night) claimed he needed a rest before dinner. When I went to call him to the table, I found him splayed on his bed, a hint of a smile across his lips.

“I feel stretched,” he said. “Like butter over too much bread.”

I think he’s got the idea.

The scene: A warm, early fall evening. A party is being held at a residential home. Guests are arriving, hugging, greeting each other warmly. They appear to be extended family and close friends. Over a dozen of them mill around the entry way as the last one arrives, an older woman with short curly brown hair. She appears to be about ninety years old, shrunken a bit by mild osteoporosis. She is carrying bags with food and gifts, and a woman in her thirties greets her with a hug, says, “Hi, Grandma,” and takes the bags from her. As they walk into the kitchen with the other guests, a gangly teenage boy enters the room.

Teenage boy says in loud voice: She looks more and more like a Hobbit.

Those near the boy quietly laugh while the older woman is distracted greeted by someone new. The woman in her thirties stifles a guffaw and briefly wonders how the rest of the evening will go.

Like many families with autism, we start planning for Halloween early. When Nigel was younger, it was to prepare him for the sensory issues that would come up. Eight years ago, the Halloween that he was six, while we carved pumpkins I played a cassette tape of “spooky” sounds: wind blowing, doors creaking, chains dragging, and an occasional howl or scream. Nigel was very disturbed by the tape, so I shut it off so that he could join us with the pumpkin carving. For the next hour, even though the music had remained off, Nigel would say every few minutes, “Music is off. Music is finished. No more music.” We didn’t hear much spontaneous speech from him in those days, but he was really motivated to tell me how he felt about that tape. Every time he said it, I assured him in a calm voice, “That’s right, no more music,” but he continued to make his statements until we were completely finished carving the pumpkins. (I realized that maybe because I left the tape player in the kitchen with us that he was afraid that the music would start again; I should have put it away, out of sight.) The following year, when Nigel was seven, I mentioned getting pumpkins to carve for Halloween, and the first thing out of his mouth was “And we will not play the Halloween music.” (His sentence structure improved greatly that year.) Then he said it a few more times that afternoon, and we hadn’t even bought the pumpkins yet.

But in recent years, the reason we start planning for Halloween early is because we love it so much, especially Nigel. We have many decorations to put up - both inside and outside, costumes to piece together, a party to plan (Nigel’s birthday is October 27), and movies to watch. Our all-time favorite is Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and we try to watch it only in October. Nigel couldn’t wait any longer and had it on the other day. I walked past him as he watched it in the living room, and he commented, “Brom Bones is a bully. He is an angry DNA strand.”

 I told him that was a good way to put it.

Then a few minutes later, after the scene in which Brom Bones sings his spooky song at the end of the party, Nigel said, “I remember when those kinds of sounds scared me. They really gave me the heebie-jeebies - when I was a little kid. But I’m not afraid anymore. You know that music you played while we used to carve pumpkins? I don’t mind it now. Because I’m a little older.”

Halloween? Scary? What scares me is Nigel’s memory.

The scene:  It is a beautiful sunny day. A group of four is having an early dinner at a bistro-style restaurant with outside seating. They are seated at a table near a walkway that borders a pretty creek framed by lush trees and foliage.  People are strolling by, looking at craft booths set up farther along the walkway. A young couple walks past the table of the four people, glancing at the teenage boy who is maniacally waving his arms around, yelling about bees. He gets up and runs off about twenty feet. The woman in the group of four, presumably his mother, coaxes him back to the table with a glass of soda, assuring him that the bee is gone. The boy reluctantly returns.

The young couple surveys the pretty, burbling creek. Their arms are around each other; they are enjoying the romantic setting.  They begin to kiss.

Teen boy at table says in loud voice:  Looks like we’re about to encounter a saliva exchange.

The other occupants of the table try to stifle their laughter, and the boy smirks and says, “That’s from My Favorite Martian.”

The mother doesn’t dare look at the young couple behind her. Signaling her son to keep his voice down, she holds her finger to her still-smiling lips and hopes that the food will arrive soon.

A few weeks ago we enjoyed a visit with some long-time friends who live out of state. Our families have been friends for so long that we joke that our sons were “friends before they were born.” At one point, their NT son Jonathan, who is twelve, was talking with Nigel about how he (Nigel) learned to read when he was three and a half.

Jonathan: That must be your savant skill.

Nigel: My what?

A sort of chill permeated the air, even though it was about 105 degrees around the patio where we sat. Jonathan didn’t respond, his parents didn’t respond; I think everyone was waiting for me to jump in. It had never before occurred to me to talk to Nigel about autistic savants. I had never thought that his hyperlexia qualified as a savant skill. Sure, it was astounding at the time, but the sources I checked do not include it as a sign of Savant Syndrome.

Me: A few autistic people have skills like computing difficult math problems in their heads, playing music very well, painting or drawing something in great detail, and memorizing lots of information. They’re called autistic savants. But not every autistic person is a savant. In fact, most are not.

Nigel: Good. Because I hate math.

So glad that’s settled.

We are an arachnophobic family. Nigel certainly fears bees and other flying insects, but spiders head the zero tolerance list for all of us. Aidan recently wore flip-flops in the house for a week when a spider hit had gone awry and the intended escaped. We don’t take these things lightly.

Last night, Nigel came up to pet one of our cats, Sheba, who was very interested in something on the floor. Nigel bent closer to look and immediately jumped back, gasping, “It’s a spider!” Sheba, as if on cue, pounced on the smallish pest, then stepped back and proceeded to eat it.

Nigel chuckled. “She’s a good cat. She’s a good bug killer.”

Then he kissed her head and said, “You mad, impetuous thing,” and went back to his room, secure in the knowledge that we have an effective spider slayer in our home.

The following helpful comment was made shortly before Nigel left for LA. I was standing by the foot of my bed folding laundry when he walked in the room and spoke in his characteristically flat tone.

Nigel (pointing to my abdominal region): Looks like you’re working on another one.

Me (insulted): No, I’m not ‘working on another one.’ My belly is protruding because I’m bending over, not because I’m pregnant!

In retrospect, I should have used this opportunity to point out to Nigel that it’s inappropriate to make comments like that!  Another topic for “Social Awareness 101,” my new homeschooling subject this fall . . .

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, and so does my younger son, Aidan. We watch all three, marathon style, about twice a year. Aidan was around six when he first started watching them with me, and at first the Orcs bothered him a little, so he would hide his eyes when they came on. But he so enjoyed the rest of each of the movies that he put up with a little ugliness. And now, being a long-time gamer, he’s grown used to the Orcs. He loves the quest storyline and the main characters, especially Gollum, whom he tries to emulate in voice and action (only at home, much to my relief). He loves the sweeping cinematography and fantasy elements. He loves the ice cream we eat together while watching the DVDs.

But Nigel, movie lover that he is, has never shown more than a passing interest in the Lord of the Rings movies. I knew the Orcs bothered him too, but it was more than that. I think the whole fantasy element of those movies bores him. He only likes fictional characters that are in realistic settings, which is why he loves superhero movies. The Lord of the Rings, even though it was filmed in the natural world, is in a fantasy setting. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

He has put in his two cents, though. The last time Aidan and I were out in the living room watching the trilogy, Nigel walked through on his way to the kitchen, stopped briefly behind the couch and said in his deadpan voice, “I think Frodo’s searching for inner peace.” Tolkien literary analysis, in a nutshell.

Then he went to snag some leftover pizza.

Autistic individuals (especially younger) often have difficulty understanding the concept and sequence of time. Unless the sequence of events is tied together as a routine, some autistic people can have trouble recalling the steps of an event in the same order. This affects their ability to learn cause/effect and means/end relationships. It also makes it difficult to predict and prepare themselves for coming events. They need a visual reference.

Nigel loves lists and calendars to make sense of the vague concept of time, and he has the cognitive ability to use them. For instance, Nigel is the first one in the household to change the calendar on the morning of the first day of a new month, without fail. He has done this since he was about seven years old. I remember back in December 2001, I had noticed that in the two weeks since December began, Nigel seemed anxious whenever I showed him something on the calendar, even though he was very excited about Christmas coming. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering him about the calendar. The following week I brought home a 2002 calendar and showed it to Nigel. Instantly his face lit up and he said, “Now we have a calendar for January and February 2002!” I realized that he had been anxious because there was nothing for him to visually refer to after December for upcoming events.

Nigel then proceeded to flip through the calendar and write in his shaky but determined hand: “NO SCHOOL” on all the days that there was no school scheduled. I smiled, amused and relieved. Sometimes autism takes a back seat for a minute, and then he’s just a regular kid.

Usually, my sons go to LA to visit their dad for two weeks in March for Spring Break, but this year their dad came up to Oregon to visit them. So I have not had an actual phone conversation with Nigel, other than “the-scout-meeting’s-over-come-pick-me-up,” since last July. In the past two weeks I have been reminded of what that’s like.

As with most of his conversations, phone or not, if Nigel’s not speaking about an Obsession of the Week, I have to drag any information out of him. He will rarely volunteer information unless it’s regarding something of interest to him, some piece of trivia about Back to the Future, natural disasters, ancient civilizations, or an explanation of his latest Lego creation, for example. He could never be accused of “B.S-ing” about something he did not know, and I doubt that will ever change.

But when I haven’t seen him for weeks, I want to hear more about how he’s been, what he’s been doing. And those are often difficult topics for him to discuss, especially if a TV is distracting him. I know this, it has always been this way, and so I am patient.

Me: So what did you do over the weekend?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Did you go to the beach?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel? Did you go to the beach over the weekend?

Nigel: Yes.

Me: Which beach did you go to?

Nigel: I don’t know.

Me: Did you visit anyone?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel, is the TV on?

Nigel: Yes.

Me: What are you watching?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: What are you watching on TV?

Nigel: The Lost Pyramid.

Me: Is it on the History Channel or Discovery?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Is it on the History Channel or Discovery?

Nigel: History.

Me: Okay, well, I love you.

Nigel: I love you, too, bye.

Relieved, I’m sure, he hangs up. He knows I love you is the last thing we say on the phone. And I am always so glad I can hear him say it.