Kath wasn’t with her, and the other professionals were impatiently shouting at her in what I felt from her state must have been an unintelligilble mass of noise threatening to get in. So these were the professionals, I thought, as I reflected on my mother’s own approach. Looking at  Anne, I thought to myself: I know where you are.

Anne followed me about, and I headed outside for the space of unfenced-in greeness.  Anne was chasing me as I avoided her; busy dancing upon her shadow, we chased each other back and forth in turn, both of our eyes on the other’s shadow and feet.  I looked up to see a few teachers looking out as us through the glass of the kitchen window.   Who’s under glass now? I thought.

       The woman sitting on Annes’s bed was screaming at her over and over again to shut up and propping the doll back in its place with every shove Anne made to push it away. It was more than I could take. Physically I moved the woman out of the way, moved the doll and gave her my brush. Anne ran her fingers repetitively through the bristles listening to the soft, barely audible sound in her ear and the sensation in her hand. I began to hum a repetitive tune I us for myself over and over again as I tapped her arm in time to the hypnotic tune. Give her something consistent to hold on to, I thought. There’ll be all the time in the world for the experts to undo it.

Anne’s crossed eyes were fozen in a dead stare and she became silent between sobs. I took her hand and made here tap her own arm as I had, the tune and the rhythm and the tapping held totally constant.

I heard a soft but audible rythm coming from outside me, Anne was making the tune herself in her throat and I slowly dropped notes of my humming and, as I expected, she filled them in as though they were andhad had been her own. Slowly, I dropped out more and more of them until she was doing not only the rythym in her throat but carrying the tune as she tapped herself in time. Then for a frozen fifteen seconds in that torchlit dark room, she completely uncrossed her eyes for the first time since I’d met her and looked directly into my face as she tapped and now hummed. I went to leave several times, only to have to repeat the process. What was important however, was that as I left she continued to tap and hum the tune between short bursts of fear.

The sun had come up on a new day, and a trip to the park was scheduled. Anne’s screams came from a small room at the back of the hall. I walked to the door only to see the same tactics of trying to calm her down by screaming ‘Shut up’ into her face.

“I will stay with her,’ I said coldly from the doorway.

“Donna Williams gets as close to the autistic mind as anyone is likely for the very reason that she herself is autistic.”  [Anthony Clare, clinical professor of psychiatry, trinity.  College, Dublin]
The following story is from her book ’Nobody Nowhere’ at the point where she was in Scotland searching out other autistics to understand more about herself.

Donna is visiting the home of Kath mother to autistic adult Perry.

“Kath was a solid personality with whom I felt relatively secure.  Her voice was rather flat and even, and the pace with which she spoke was easy to follow.   She had long straight grey hair and darting eyes, and though I felt welcomed by her I didn’t feel smothered by her involvement.

She had a son my age (late 20′s), and her son was autistic.   When I met him, he was he was running his hands through coloured beads.  I didn’t want him to say hello or ask me how I was.  Those were words reserved for those who wanted to move in ‘the world’ and her son Perry certainly didn’t.

I sat on the floor nearby and took out a handful of coloured buttons and glass fruit.  I sorted them into groups, put my hand out to where Perry was playing with his beads and, without a glance and without a word, I dropped them.  Perry caught them and did the same back.

(I remembered my first version of relating – mirrors – but this time there would be nobody to say that my version of relating wasn’t good enough.)

This went on for a while, and we began to modify the game.   I had a bell which I jingled to myself and dropped it for him to catch like before.  Like before, Perry repeated but with the added feature of making a noise to go with it.

I mirrored him and the game became mobile with us following one another about the place in turn, ringing the bell and giving it over as the game became more and more direct.

I sat back on the floor, lining up the buttons in categories.
Perry approached, picked up a button here and there and added them to my rows
where they belonged. Without looking at him, I knew what he was saying.

I hadn’t noticed that Kath had entered the room. She was standing there silently as Perry came over to where I was.    He had laid himself out, face down, on the floor in front of me, arms pulled up tightly against his sides as he shook with anxiety.

‘Look at me,’I said reading the same action I’d seen so many times in myself. ‘Look, I’m daring to be touched.’ I had looked straight at Perry lying there as I had said it, tears rolling down my face as I read his behaviour as one might a book. I had the tremors from head to toe…

I turned to see Kath crying.
‘I never thought he had any language,’ she said. ‘Now I see he does. I just don’t know how to speak it’…
She said she had never seen him look so ‘normal’.
( and I had never felt I had understood another individual so well.)

‘We think it is we who have to teach autistic people,’Kath said. ‘Now I see it us who have so much to learn from them.’

Kath was also a teacher of autistic children.  See Feelings 3
___________________________

Lino and Lourdes

From left: Dale, Marley

That afternoon, on Special School  pickup, I was greeted by a brand new sight.

My son, 17 year old Marley, was teaching 14 year old Dale, the ipad game, Ludo. His teacher and vice principal were looking on.

A year ago, Marley would not have understood any of this… neither the  playing nor the explaining. Add to that, neither reading or writing. Entertaining others was a strong desire, but without coherent speech…he only had an audience of one. Anyone who cared enough to try to listen.  Whilst art has always been his prolific medium, he has rapidly begun developing speech, logic, sequence over the last couple of years. Textbooks list those with autism coupled with epilepsy in the most challenged bracket (read: too limited to develop significantly). The establishment view is: If you miss early childhood intervention there is only a significantly open window of development till adolescence! After that it’s over.  False! I say.

In some cases, its simply ‘more time to develop’ that’s required. (depends on the control or otherwize of the seizures)

Now back to the game of Ludo…

All the children fascinate me so I stepped over to watch, to learn, to get to know who Dale is…

What I saw was impossible!

Follow me on this: It was clear that Dale did not yet understand how the game worked. Press the dice, it rolls. Press the highlighted piece, it moves.There are no choices when only one piece is in play… easy right? Pressing as he went, Dale trails behind the automated moves saying to himself, “Where do I go?. Where do I go now?”

Now the impossible stuff happens:

Marley had 3 pieces in play. Dale rolled the first dice and he knocked Marley’s piece back to Start. His next roll knocked the second piece back, and his 3rd, the last one. Then he proceeded to roll 6 after 6 and ace the game. I did not need my university study of probability theory to tell that these odds are… yes, impossible.

I was astounded. This child seemed to be controlling the dice!

Then his mother walked in. I turned excitedly to tell her what happened.”He doesn’t even know how the game works!”He doesn’t even know the number the dice must roll, yet the dice rolls utterly in his favour everytime!”. “What is that?”, “Who knows what this ability to ‘know’ something with out ‘knowing consciously’ is for?”

His mother looked blankly at me.

I had to up the ante… more at stake would get her attention!

I glanced at the state of play: Dale was about to enter his final piece into the winners lane. Marley had one piece right outside of there.

In the next roll, if true to form, Dale would knock Marley’s piece off, prior to winning the game.

I turned my back to the game and folded my arms across my chest.

“Watch him throw a 3″, I claimed.

The dice rumbled as it rolled….

“He got a 3″, she called.

Hmm?…