DisneyMom wrote:Again, WELL SAID!
It does bring a lot of attention to the problem when a celeb states that autism has affected their family, but to see the real magnitude of the increase in frequency, you all could go to one one the Autism Walks in a major city. If I recall correctly, there were 10,000 walking at WALK NOW
LA last April at the Rose Bowl. A HUGE difference from when my son was little and hardly anyone had heard of it except for when they watched Rain Man.
Susi and Ralph, I am so sorry to hear about your family member's passing.
I appreciate all of you who are interested in Autism, and want to help.
The mention of Rain man is interesting, because that is my nickname for Ralph. Since his accident was one of major head trauma, it did change him in many ways mentally. He takes some time to answer questions sometimes and is *slower* on the uptake. He also has some incredibly unusual preoccupations. He will look at anything with numbers and pick out the prime numbers or the natural numbers, he will add them up and figure out another aspect of the number. He is fascinated by palindromes. He also puts his paper money in his wallet not only according to denomination, but in serial number order! He is obsessed with numbers and is a great mathematician. He has some aspects of preocupicity such as you find in Aspergers and he cannot do more than one thing at once. If he is on the phone, he cannot also write or talk to someone else. He has to be completely immersed in one thing he is doing. I multi task up to 3 and 4 things at a time. He absolutely cannot do it. These are all impacts from his brain damage, but they mirror so many of Autism's symptoms, that it makes me wonder what part of the brain was damaged and how it was damaged to present this way.
He is not as preoccupied as Rain Man was, of course, but his compulsive behavior is noticeable and he must do everything in order. When he dresses, he has to do it exactly the same way, every time, or he gets confused. When he drives somewhere he gets lost easily, unless he goes the exact same way evertime. Things have to be done in order no matter what task it is, from laundry to writing out lists for everything (in his own little code language he made up ;) )to getting ready for bed the exact same way everytime. If one thng is out of order he gets confused. He had to relaern everyting in the hospital at age 21, so it may be that he is just doing things the exact way he was taught in the hospital and his brain cannot really adjust so easily to a ripple in the progamming. It is quite interesting and we talk alot about it.
It definitely stemmed from his brain injury. He is however extremely emo and has no problem showing emotion at all, ever. He can be overly emotional sometimes and wants hugs ALL THE TIME! He has a short temper when he feels like he is being *bugged too much* or when someone is trying to pull one over on him.
He also does not think out somethings before he says them and we have had a few embarassing moments with some of the things he has said in public.
It is almost like there is no social filter there at times. Other times there is, but most of the time there is not. I have to coach him before we go out often to tell him what is proper social talk and what is not. It can get sticky when he lapses if there is a racial feel to the conversation and it HAS happened with our Black friends. Luckily they know us very well and understand his dilemma and laugh it off. It has never caused a serious problem in our circle of friends.
Only one time was there an extremely uncomfortable moment on a train trip we took and the conversation was going along smoothly at a shared table in the dining car and then he blurted out something, which caused a very unconfortable silence and then I quietly glossed the statement over and got the conversation moving again. But he does not MEAN to be rude or out of line. It just pops out sometimes and he does not know it is not such unnacceptable speech. It is never really outrageous, but a sort of undertone that he does not know is not quite polite. Baffling to most of us.
Brains are fragile things and we have along way to go in understanding how and why they work.
In the meantime, I love my Rain man because he is who he is and he is a loving, comapssionate person who has some effects from an accident that changed him in some ways.
It really is like dealing with a child sometimes too. He can be very childlike and I sometimes am put in a position of acting like a mother, which can get creepy.
But that is not very often, thankfully. Life. We take it as we are given it and we do our best with the tools we have in our own personality make-up.
sues
:thumbup: Keep up the good work.
). If someone were to tell me that their child was autistic, or *mentally challenged* or Down's which is more defined by body type, I would probably ask what I could do to help the mother, if she also had more children with her and/or she had her hands full. 
