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Old 11-25-2006, 05:41 PM #1
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Arrow Growing Up With Autism

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Growing Up With Autism

Teenagers and young adults are the emerging face of autism as the disorder continues to challenge science and unite determined families.
By Barbara Kantrowitz and Julie Scelfo
Newsweek


Nov. 27, 2006 issue - Chicken and potatoes. Chicken and potatoes. Danny Boronat wants chicken and potatoes. He asks for it once, twice ... 10 times. In the kitchen of the family's suburban New Jersey home, Danny's mother, Loretta, chops garlic for spaghetti sauce. No chicken and potatoes, she tells Danny. We're having spaghetti. But Danny wants chicken and potatoes. Chicken and potatoes. His 12-year-old sister, Rosalinda, wanders in to remind her mother about upcoming basketball tryouts. His brother Alex, 22, grabs some tortilla chips and then leaves to check scores on ESPN. His other brother Matthew, 17, talks about an upcoming gig with his band. Danny seems not to notice any of this. "Mom," he asks in a monotone, "why can't we have chicken and potatoes?" If Danny were a toddler, his behavior would be nothing unusual. But Danny Boronat is 20 years old. "That's really what life with autism is like," says Loretta. "I have to keep laughing. Otherwise, I would cry."

Autism strikes in childhood, but as thousands of families like the Boronats have learned—and thousands more are destined to learn—autism is not simply a childhood disorder. Two decades into the surge of diagnoses that has made autism a major public health issue, a generation of teenagers and young adults is facing a new crisis: what happens next?

As daunting as that question may be, it's just the latest in the endless chain of challenges that is life for the dedicated parents of children with autism. Twenty years ago, they banded together—largely out of desperation—to raise awareness of a once rarely diagnosed, often overlooked disease. They are united by the frustration of dealing with a condition that has no known cause and no cure. They have lobbied passionately to get better education for their kids and more money for research into autism, a neurological disorder characterized by language problems, repetitive behaviors and difficulty with social interaction.

At the same time, more sophisticated epidemiology has revealed the true magnitude of the problem. Autism is now estimated to affect from one in 500 to one in 166 children—or as many as 500,000 Americans under 21, most male. That includes individuals with a wide range of abilities—from socially awkward math whizzes to teens who aren't toilet trained—but who all fit on what scientists now consider a spectrum of autism disorders.

Moving through adolescence to adulthood is never easy, but autism transforms even the most routine activities into potential minefields. Recognizing the norms of teen behavior can be a Sisyphean task. Helen Motokane's daughter, Christine, 14, has Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of the disorder. She struggles to fit in at her Los Angeles public school—and that means hiding parts of her true self. One secret: she loves Barbie. "She knows it's not cool to wear clothes with Barbie logos, so she tries to keep that at home," says Helen, who gently prods her daughter into developing more mature interests. "She says, 'You're trying to make me grow up, aren't you? You want me to do all these things right away.' I go, 'No, no, no.' I reassure her that we're not trying to push her." But an hour or two later, her mother says, Christine will ask, "Is it OK if I like Disney Princess even though other kids my age don't like it?"

Keri Bowers of Thousand Oaks, Calif., says her son, Taylor Cross, 17, seems perfectly normal at first. But sometimes he'll just blurt out what he's thinking without any internal censorship. Passing a stranger on the street, he might say, "You're in a wheelchair!" "When you're socially odd, people are afraid," Bowers says. "They want to get away from you and cross to the other side of the street." Not surprisingly, Taylor had no friends at all in the public school he attends until he began to meet other teens with autism—young people his mother describes as equally "quirky."

In one way, he's not quirky at all. "He's attracted to girls," Bowers says, "but he's shy. He doesn't really know how to talk to them." A few months ago, he asked out a girl from his school who does not have autism but who had been friendly to him. Bowers had a psychologist friend shadow the couple at the movies. "Taylor only spoke about subjects he was interested in," Bowers says. "He wouldn't do a reciprocal back-and-forth conversation on topics about her." Still, when Bowers later asked if he wanted to kiss the girl, Taylor surprised his mother with his sensitivity. "He said, 'Yes, but she's very religious and I would never do that'."

As young people with autism approach adulthood, some parents can't help but feel the huge gaps between their child's lives and others the same age. "It's very hard, especially in our competitive society where people strive for perfection," says Chantal Sicile-Kira, whose son, Jeremy, 17, can communicate only by pointing to letters on an alphabet board. The San Diego resident hosts "The Real World of Autism With Chantal" on the Autism One Radio Internet station and wrote "Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum" (Penguin, 2006). Like many youngsters with autism, Jeremy finds new environments difficult. "If he walks into a new store," his mother says, "and there's horrendous fluorescent lighting, within 10 minutes I'll look down and he's starting to wet himself." Despite such challenges, Sicile-Kira plans to help Jeremy live on his own when he's an adult—perhaps rooming with another young person with autism.

Independent living is a major goal of many families and, with the help of therapy, thousands of youngsters who in earlier generations would have been consigned to institutions are now going to college and looking forward to a normal life with a job.

But for every one who makes it, there are many more young people like Danny Boronat, who has come so far and yet still faces much uncertainty. Once unable to utter a sentence, Danny now reads at a second-grade level, competes in the Special Olympics and willingly takes on household chores like loading the dishwasher. But he also can spend hours playing with water. He picks obsessively at his cuticles, and sometimes cuts himself (his mother tries to hide any scissors in the house). He has no close friends. Next year he'll turn 21 and will no longer be eligible for the workshop where he does simple assembly-line work three days a week. After that? No one knows, not even his parents. "It's terrifying," says his mother, who started her own charity called DannysHouse to focus on adults.

A few states like California and Connecticut, newly aware of the crisis, have launched efforts to meet adult needs. But until programs are widely available, families are left to cobble together a patchwork of solutions—from informal day care to hourly caretakers to private residential programs. But these are stopgap measures. Parents worry that they will run out of money to pay for these services—and that they won't be around forever to arrange them for their children.

It's understandable that these parents would feel distraught. Many adults with autism require so much special care that it's hard to imagine anyone but a loving family member willing to provide it. "My wife and I are concerned about what's going to happen to our son when we pass on," says Lee Jorwic, whose son Christopher, 17, is unable to speak even though he's been in therapy since childhood. At 6 feet 4 inches and 290 pounds, Christopher is "our gentle giant," his father says. But because of his disabilities, even the most routine tasks require extraordinary preparations.

Two years ago, for example, Christopher got an eye infection. He couldn't sit still long enough for the doctor to perform an exam so he had to go under anesthesia twice "just so the guy could look in his eye," his father says. Grossman says the Autism Society gets hundreds of calls every day from families like the Jorwics. "The most distressing, most disheartening, are from parents of older kids, parents who are at the end of life," he says. "They've been fighting this all their life, and they don't have a place for the kid after they die."

The natural successors to parents as caretakers would be siblings. Some families feel that's too much of a burden; others say that's a natural part of life in a family with autism. When one sibling has autism, the needs of so-called neurotypical children may seem to come second. Beth Eisman of Potomac, Md., recently sent her oldest daughter, Melanie, 18, off to college. Her goal for her younger daughter, Dana, 16, is more basic: independence. Dana's tantrums limited the family's participation in Melanie's school activities. "The old days were pretty bad," Eisman says. "Melanie often took the brunt of it." Now that Melanie is gone, Dana feels the loss. Eisman says Dana often goes into her sister's room and says, "I want Melanie."

Many families are sustained knowing that, by raising awareness of autism, they have already given their children the gift of a meaningful identity. "If this was 10 years ago, my daughter's classmates might say she's the one who talks to herself all the time and flaps her hands," says Roy Richard Grinker, an anthropologist at George Washington University and father of Isabel, 15. "But if you ask these kids in 2006 about Isabel, they say she's the one who plays the cello and who's smart about animals." Inspired by his daughter, Grinker explored autism in different cultures for his book "Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism" (Basic Books, 2007). "The more peers of the same age group understand about autism, the more likely they are to be kind, caring and integrate them into community life."

Twenty years ago, that kind of acceptance was inconceivable. Autism was considered rare and few physicians understood it or were able to help. The disorder was first identified by Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins in 1943. About the same time a German scientist, Hans Asperger, described a less severe form of the condition. But with the ascendancy of psychoanalysis in the postwar years, the predominant view was that autism was a psychological disorder caused by a lack of love from "refrigerator mothers," a term introduced by the controversial psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. In the 1970s, parents started pushing back against this theory and encouraging researchers to look for neurological causes.

It wasn't until 1980 that autism became an official clinical diagnosis, separate from childhood schizophrenia or retardation.

Since that time, as scientists have learned more, they have broadened the diagnosis to include a spectrum of disabilities. Now, they are re-evaluting it even further, considering the idea that there may be multiple "autisms."

As knowledge about autism spread in the 1990s, families began to get more accurate diagnoses for children who might in the past have been labeled mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed, and the number of correctly diagnosed cases skyrocketed.


Because of the Internet and extensive networking, parents around the country found allies and became powerful and articulate advocates. Even longtime autism researchers say families have really led the way. "Beyond raising awareness," says Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, "families have become the real experts on this disorder. They have to figure out how to cope with a child who becomes explosive, disruptive, who could have a meltdown at any moment. They become highly skilled at knowing what helps."

Autism has set all these families on a unique journey and, while the road ahead is still unclear, they cherish small triumphs along the way. Grinker has a Ph.D. from Harvard and, in his community, many parents dream of sending their children to the Ivy League. He and his wife, Joyce, a psychiatrist, know that Isabel will never join them. But raising Isabel has its own rewards. Isabel's sister, Olivia, 13, is "like a third parent," says Grinker. The family judges Isabel not by the standards of others but by how far she has come. "When Isabel achieves something, I feel like we're a team, like we all did it, and I feel incredibly rewarded," he says. For now, that is enough.
With Karen Springen and Mary Carmichael

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15792805/site/newsweek/
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Old 11-25-2006, 06:11 PM #2
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Thumbs up

I read this just a couple of days ago, and Christine's question about whether or not it was okay for her to like Disney Princess struck me like lightning as I realized that's what my son has been asking me about several things. He'll say something like, "Do I like Sesame Street or too old?" WOW...He's getting it!!!!!!! We're turnin' corners like crazy!!!!!


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Old 11-25-2006, 10:24 PM #3
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Lightbulb my grandson, autistic

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Originally Posted by LIZARD View Post
I read this just a couple of days ago, and Christine's question about whether or not it was okay for her to like Disney Princess struck me like lightning as I realized that's what my son has been asking me about several things. He'll say something like, "Do I like Sesame Street or too old?" WOW...He's getting it!!!!!!! We're turnin' corners like crazy!!!!!
LIZARD
Hi Lizard. It is so good to hear you say, "turnin' corners like crazy!!!!!" because my 3 year old (in August) grandson was diagnosed a year ago with developmental delays and aversion to hugs, aversion to facial or head touch, an upper lip that had never worked, impoverished speech for age and several other lags that became apparent over the next 6 months.

He displays an inability to respond to directives like "don't squeeze the cat" ... but just this past Spring I only noticed that he would NOT stop at the curb, but would run pell mell into the street - the same with running away from his family at the park. There WAS no stopping him, only chasing him til they could catch up.

He was approved for 5 day a week special ed (he LOVES taking the bus, like his big sister). But my daughter has said that some of his teachers definitely recognize what they describe as autism, and even my daughter accepts it, tho it hurts like mad.

They are spending days in their car driving from Maryland to San Antonio and then back at Christmas, all because they know they could not handle him in the airports, the lines and the airplanes. It is difficult for me to conceive. What is particularly sad is that my daughter had long said that she would never have a second child for fear the baby be born with the severe learning disabilities that her little sister has -- and here is a child who is much more severely disabled.

I am heartened, tho, to read in this article about how it is speculated that their are MANY kinds of autism, hopeful that his will be one where he can acheive a lot of improvement. I am told that his speech is much easier to understand already.

I have recently read about how successful one-on-one programs can be - but know he will be limited in one-on-one in public schools. However, I do hope that he will be one of those who can be in a (regular?) classroom without an aide sometime during elementary school. This is all so new for me.

Teri
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