A couple years back, we went to a talk given by Dr. Temple Grandin. I was going to go by myself and leave the kids with Mama.
But, surprisingly, Jonny (my oldest) wanted to come with me. He didn’t bring a tablet or anything to keep his interest (except for “Darthy” [a stuffed Darth Vader] who goes with him everywhere, and a stuffed “Belle” from Beauty and the Beast.)
The talk was illuminating for me, but I thought Jonny had tuned out by about 3 minutes into it.
I first learned about autism through Dr. Grandin. Her Ted Talk was the first thing I watched regarding the great things Autistic people are capable of doing.
At the end of the talk, Dr. Grandin opened up the floor for questions, and to my surprise, Jonny’s hand shot straight up.
I had no idea what he was going to ask.
You see, everything Jonny knows about autism has been filtered through his younger brother, Jonah.
Jonny only knows how Jonah’s autism affects him… how he responds to different situations, his development with various skills and things he is still working on.
That’s “Jonah’s kind of autism.”
Jonny has no other frame of reference for what autism actually IS.
So his question is asking “How is YOUR autism like or unlike my brother’s autism?”
“What kind of autism did/do you have?”
It was an appropriate question, and Dr. Grandin’s answer was an appropriate answer regarding functioning labels and the like…
But Jonny wanted to know SPECIFICALLY what things Dr. Grandin did as a child that Jonah also does, because that is how he relates to her.