Nobody trips over
mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the
pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain." –Unknown
When the world says,
'give up,' hope whispers, 'try it one more time.'" -Unknown
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The word “regression,” when
used in connection with Autism usually describes a group of children who
develop age appropriate language abilities and social skills for approximately
the first 18 months of their lives, and then lose those skills and abilities,
typically around the age of 2. It can be contrasted with early-onset
autism, where the child misses developmental milestones without a noticeable
regression.
In our house, we often use
“regression” in a different way. We use regression to describe those
days, or periods of days, which occur without a predictable pattern, where the
Little Man loses skills and abilities that were previously believed to be
mastered.
If you have or have been
around a baby, do you remember those days when the baby would cry and you would
have to guess the cause for the tears? You start with the usual suspects:
hungry, thirsty, tired, diaper. You know you guessed right when the
crying stopped. Eventually, the baby develops the communication abilities
to tell you what it is he or she needs – a point, a gesture, a smile, and
ultimately words.
Well for us, Autism
intervened to thwart the development of those communication abilities. It
took us a very long time, and a lot of hard work, to get the Little Man to
communicate his basic needs to us in a way we could understand and act
upon. In the early days, when we wanted to know if he was hungry, we
needed a visual prompt, such as a box of waffles, or the use of sign language –
accompanied by the words: Do you want a waffle?
Slowly over time we were
able to remove the visual prompt and eventually the Little Man developed the
ability to come to us on his own when he was hungry and say “I want a waffle.”
There are literally
hundreds of examples of these successes. Successes where you think he
mastered a skill and you are lulled into a false sense of security. If he
is hungry, he will tell us, right?
Then came regression day!
My wife and were
startled to hear the Little Man downstairs screaming in tears. What
happened? Was he hurt? No physical signs of injury. Are you
hungry? Do you want to go downstairs? Do you want to watch
TV? Do you want to go outside? These are all things he can ask for,
but we received no response, no indication.
And the guessing game
began.
Perhaps a shower will
calm him? Nope. A TV show? Nope. A car ride? Nope. Two tearful
hours passed with no indication of what was wrong. We were ready to call
the doctor fearing it was something internal. In a last ditch effort, we
decided my wife would take the other kids, who were visibly shaken, out of the
house while I tried a few more things. As she was leaving, my wife left a
bowl of Cheerios on the table and took the other guys out for a much needed
respite.
I saw them off as the
Little Man stopped crying. Three bowls of Cheerios, two waffles and a
bowl of pretzels later, we discovered the problem: he was famished.
After weeks, months and
years of progress, where he was able to communicate his basic human needs to
us, why did he suddenly lose that ability? That, my friends, is a
question for someone more intelligent that I. It is just a cyclical
thing that happens from time to time in our Autism reality show.
Fortunately, the cycle goes back in the opposite direction and just, like that,
he is back to himself, telling us what he wants – when he wants it.
Justin,
ReplyDeletevery moving post. my nephew has autism. thank you for putting this into words.
best,
MOV
ps--found you on a to z, and will be back to read more