A personal reflection 169Autism spectrum – to the point where doctors recommended separation from my
family. At that time a diagnosis of Autism was tantamount to a life sentence to an
institution with little to no hope of inclusion in the greater society. Fortunately, my
parents believed in me, refuted the professional recommendations for institutional-
ization, and convinced the diagnosticians to place me in a center for “children with
atypical development” in a year’s time.
However, my parents took that year to implement “an intensive home-based
early intervention program emphasizing movement, music, sensory integration,
narration and imitation” (Antony and Shore, 2015, p. 36). At first, my parents’
attempts to get me to imitate them failed and they were discouraged. It is commonly
mentioned in education that it is important or even necessary for the student to
imitate the teacher to learn. Whether it’s penmanship, mathematics, physical educa-
tion, or even in apprenticeship situations the student is expected to watch, process,
generalize to themselves, and imitate.
Yet, perhaps due to neuronal differences in people on the Autism spectrum,
imitation becomes impossible, especially at a young age. Maybe out of despera-
tion, or due to a possible flash of insight, my parents flipped their efforts around to
imitate my sounds and actions, and entered into my world. In doing so they began
the long process of including me in family activities, which led to further, albeit
hard-won, successes in school and beyond.
The foundation for successful social inclusion begins with believing in the
competence of the individual and meeting them where they are. My parents
accepted me for who I was. Yet at the same time, they realized that significant inter-
vention and work was needed if I were to lead a fulfilling and productive life. My
parents had no background in education or psychology. All they knew is that they
had to do anything they could to reach their child. And they did!
Preschool
With speech beginning to return at age four, I was admitted to the school where
their diagnosing professionals initially recommended institutionalization. Upon
re-evaluation, based on the work my parents had done, I was upgraded from a diag-
nosis that included strong autistic tendencies, atypical development, and psychotic
to neurotic. Things were looking up.
The center I attended subscribed to then-current psychologically oriented
beliefs of Autism being caused by poor parenting. In contrast to today, teachers were
prohibited from sharing the day’s events with the parents of the child. The rationale
was that parental queries such as whether their child ate lunch that day was framed
as a parent really wondering if the school was a better caretaker of the child than the
parent was (Shore, 2003). At that time, it was thought that such weighty questions
could only be addressed by highly trained psychologists.
Fortunately, even in that climate, I was lucky enough to have a teacher who
understood the importance of play in initiating social contact with others. For
example, realizing that the children in her class expressed interest in trains, she would