In class the problems that people with autism have with language was mentioned. I think it's really interesting, because I volunteer with autistic children at home, and I get to observe the problems they have. Some of the kids I work with can not form sentences and sometimes not even words. Others are more advanced and can have normal conversations. There is one girl, however, that I have worked with named Kelly. Most of the time she just repeats certain phrases she hears on TV or in movies and she does not interact much with the other volunteers and me. We will talk to her and try to get her to participate in games, but it seems as if she does not understand what we are saying. There are times, though, where she will look into our eyes and you can tell that she understands everything that is going on. At these times she will then form sentences and converse with us for a few seconds. In class we talked about how autistic people have language problems, but is there any explanation for these sporadic moments of complete understanding?
I found a website that explains what autism is and its characteristics if anybody is interested.
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/autism.asp
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6 comments:
I have an autistic uncle and he is functional but has a hard time answering questions in which he has to choose one thing or another. I think there are so many different levels of autism that sporadic moments may be diffent for each person
I used to go to school with an autistic guy. He had mental problems and it didn't seem at all like he had any ability. However, when somebody asked him, he was able to memorize the calender for the next year? This doesn't sound very autistic but I can't really remember what he was able to do with the calender. Anyway, he was also able to dance to the Men in Black theme song. (He knew the choreography for the entire song.)
There are many different variations of autism and almost no two cases are alike. Greg, what you are describing is definitely not unusual. Autistic people have been known to memorize many years worth of calendars. There is a busboy at a burrito place near my house who will go around and ask everyone what day and year they were born and then he tells them what day of the week that was. Your schoolmate probably was able to do something similar to that. The fact that he could do that and memorize choreography to the MIB song definitely seems to indicate he has some abilities!
A few years ago I was a summer camp counselor for a mainstreaming program for autistic kids. I worked with the more severely autistic kids (four boys from 9-10 yrs. old), trying to help them function socially with the non-autistic kids. Within my own group, I could definitely see a spectrum of the degrees of autism. One of my kids basically memorized the Beatles catalog of songs and would always be singing them, but I was never able to engage him in actual, or even limited, conversation. Another one of my kids loved to participate in the different activities, but it was hard because everything had to be exactly the same every day -- he had to be on the same team with the same people from the previous day, wearing the same jerseys, etc. It was very challenging but gave me a lot of insight into how broad the category of autism is.
Greg, I applaud you for working with autistic children. My cousin is mildly autistic and as a result, I was moved to worked with an organization known as the friendship circle, mentoring and performing behavioral therapeutic sessions for autistic children for a little over a year. During this time I witnessed many characteristics similar to those you have described. In my training for the program, and in my subsequent discussions with supervisors, I was informed that there are many theorists and proposed reasons for such behaviors. Many theorists have spoken of a possible connection between obsessive compulsive disorder and specific types of autism. Another factoid I remember being told was that often times, individuals afflicted with autism often were diagnosably obsessive compulsive. Finally, I was told that other theorists believed that the impairments in cognition caused by autism, reflected by the stereotypically autistic behavior of disengagement from the outside world, can, in some be overcompensated for by shifting focus inward allowing for intense concentration and superior and often times amazing memory capability.
yes, there are many different types of autism, which is evident in the people we see who are autistic. i have a friend who's brother is autistic. he is 14, so looks very mature. but when you talk to him, he cannot have a normal conversation. he fixates on what he loves to do every day. he is a computer genius, and creates characters on the computer which would rival any professional gamer. but although he is very good at this, and his intelligence is obviously there, he cannot interact normally.
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