Not Forsaken

Busy, busy days here. It's kind of nice because I don't have time to fall into my usual February habit of complaining about the weather (especially on gray days like today, when everything turns into slush).

So, we were working on teaching Ethan how to match things. It's funny how certain skills don't even feel like skills, just life, until you are trying to teach them to someone who hasn't gotten it yet. I have to slow down and rethink everything.

What's funny is that I think Ethan understands the concept of matching -- he will bring his toy pig from the other room and hold it up to the pig magnet, saying "Pig!" But what frazzles him is the standard assessment format -- meaning, the therapist shows him three different objects, hands him one that matches one of the three, and asks him "Where does this go?" He doesn't know what to do. Maybe because there's not really a point when he does it that way. Again and again I have opportunities to see the way learning, emotion, and motivation are linked. Ethan loves pigs and he wants to show mom the way the two pigs go together. He could care less about the fake flower that Jessica wants him to mach with an equally ugly fake flower (that he's never seen before). I can see how it makes much more sense to teach matching via the laundry, emptying the dishwasher; stuff like that that Ethan already enjoys helping with.

A dear woman who I've never met agreed with that assumption, when I emailed her the other day. I stumbled across Tahirih's blog (http://autismgames.blogspot.com/) and companion website on autism games (http://sites.google.com/site/autismgames/) a few months ago and they have been a godsend. Tahirih is a speech language pathologist out in Minnesota who runs a play clinic for kids with autism, and she has all kind of wonderfully creative games that kids on the autism spectrum will enjoy. She's put many of them into video form online so parents and kids can watch and replicate them on their own. Best of all, Tahirih has a huge heart for kids on the spectrum and is incredibly responsive to people like me who don't know her but are looking for advice. We've had several great conversations over email on different aproaches to try and getting into the "mind" of a child with autism. I often tell her Ethan is her biggest fan. Her games are broken into three categories, and Ethan could watch all of the beginner games for hours. He claps, smiles, laughs. Sometimes I will try the games when the therapists come just to draw him in and I almost wish they would do more of them with him, because sometimes they work better than the stuff the therapists had in mind! Then I feel a bit like I'm upstaging them with my idea -- but I can't help but try what I can to help keep the little guy engaged.

When I think of Tahirih and her website I can't help but be flooded with gratefulness for some of the people who have appeared in my life in recent months to help me through this journey. By that I don't mean friends or family or other mainstays, for whom I am of course very thankful as well, but here I'm referring to those people who have come out of nowhere...like this woman halfway across the country...or two friends from childhood I'd recently made contact with who have children on the autism spectrum...or the website of a Christian mom whose daughter has severe autism that has provided much inspiration and spiritual insight on some of my low days.

I may not always like the situation I'm in. I may feel despondent at times, not wanting to be walking down this road, or lacking in joy or strength. But I have never felt forsaken. I have to thank God for that. There is nothing worse than feeling completely alone.