We were at one of Jonny’s doctor’s appointments and they needed to hear him “talking” so they could assess his speech. (He had surgery as an infant to repair a cleft palate).
He opened with this.
“My name is Jonny. Our cat Chloe just died on my dad’s birthday. So it wasn’t fun. But we have a new cat named Annie. She’s just a kitten. How old is she, Daddy?… 4 weeks or somethin like that. We used to have another cat named Captain. He died too. Raccoons attacked him in the back yard but I don’t remember that. I was only 5 years old or something and it happened while I was sleepi… JONAH!!! HAHAHAHA!!
…OH! That’s just my baby brother Jonah. He has autism which is why he’s running around and climbing around under the table. Sometimes he gets upset and I don’t like it. But He’s the best ‘autism kid’ ever!”…
We’ve talked to Jonny about Jonah’s autism and explained it the best we could. Jonny took it in stride. Jonah is just “Jonah.” And if Jonah also “has autism,” then, ‘autism’ must be pretty cool.
He might come up to you and point blank ask you if you have autism. What he means is “Are you as cool as my baby brother?”