Who is William?

Hey All

Today I'm gonna give a bit more information about William and some of his issues. For those who are aware of autism, no 2 people are affected the same. Its a huge spectrum and affects people in different ways, but they're all amazing individuals.  

William has typical features of the "triad of impairments"

Social interaction - in his early days he rarely interacted with anyone. He used to sit at the side of the room and play by himself and didn't want anyone involved. Not even me. And that was really sad. Not for him, that was what he wanted. That's improved massively in the last year.

Social communication - although William started speaking at 13 months (ish...!), Dada, Baba, the usual funny noises babies make. It changed at about 15 months and he no longer spoke. It was high pitched squeals, squeaks and crying. And that was all he did. It was a bit hard on the ears and to hear him cry and moan all day because he couldn't tell me what he wanted or needed. We had to second guess everything and use trial and error to find out what was bothering him. Sometimes we never figured it out and he'd just give up and walk away.  Communication is still a major issue, and now I have completed a signalong introduction course, we are starting to use symbols and home and in school, to try and encourage speech and other forms of communicating his needs, wants and feelings.

Social imagination. William has very little imagination, maybe none yet, its hard to tell. He will copy things he has seen sometimes, but he has to see something happen numerous (maybe 100 times) before it'll become an action for him. He enjoys lying his Upsy Daisy figure on the floor and telling her to get up, like Iggle Piggle at the end of In the Night Garden.

There are several other issues, mainly his love of repetition, poor sleep and he has moderate to severe learning difficulties too. 

Different information sources talk about these "impairments" in different ways. To be honest, I don't really pay much mind to them, its just medical theory. Although its important to work on the areas that William has problems with,  they're not quite as important as.....figuring out his STRENGTHS....

Its easy to feel sorry and think oh God he's "autistic" (I don't really like that word), oh what a shame, he's so different yada yada. But to be frank, William really does not give two stuffs. He is who he is, he's not defective, he enjoys a good fart like the rest of us, he avoids veg, he enjoys watching You've been Framed and will have a good old chuckle at people falling into ponds and smashing their faces in.  He loves banging things, hence his nickname is Bongo.  

And.he.does.not.like.going.to.bed......

Part of William's problem is that he's very stubborn and very passive. He requires a lot of adult input to help him learn. And if he ain't in the mood to learn what you want him to, then you're doomed and you might as well go get some coffee instead. William learns what he wants, when he wants to. School have some great tactics for dealing with him, and we will carry on with those until we figure out how to unlock his potential.

It's exhausting at times, but the small glimmers of hope we get every now and then are worth every minute. He's not "stuck" or "locked in", he's got a lot up there in that little brain of his, but he just isnt' ready to share it with me yet. I'd better stock up on some Tenas, because when he does decide to shine, I'll be wetting myself with excitement for a week!

"Wave to the Wottingers!"