WEBVTT

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Roller coaster, roller
coaster, going up and down.

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Roller coaster, roller coaster, going

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up and down. These
children are in a special

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treatment for autism. Many people
appear to confuse autism with mental

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retardation, but in reality these are
two entirely separate and unrelated

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disorders. So what is autism? Autism

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is a developmental disorder that involves
a miswiring of the brain. This miswiring

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interferes with normal development
in the areas of reasoning, social

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interaction, and communication skills.
The degree of abnormality

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in these areas range in a spectrum with
a variety of combinations; from mild

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to severe, depending on the individual.
Reasons for this

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disorder are not fully known, although many
experts believe they will eventually find that

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genes play a significant factor.
In 1943, Leo

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Canter in Baltimore, Maryland, was first to
publish accounts of the disorder. Not long

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after in 1944, Hans Asperger,
unaware of Canter\'s work, also

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published similar accounts of this disorder in
Vienna, Austria. Remarkably, they both used

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the word autistic to describe
symptoms of unresponsive

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self-stimulative children.

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[music] The understanding of
autism has changed significantly

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since the 1940s. We now know
autism is not a mental illness

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caused by bad parenting. It is not a
disease or mental retardation, although

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this can occur simultaneously.
Autism is a disorder that today

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has been estimated to effect 400,000
people in the United States.

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This makes it the third most common
developmental disability; more

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common than down syndrome. Someone who
can give insight into this disorder

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is an assistant professor of animal
science at Colorado State University,

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Temple Grandin. One of the problems that a lot
of autistics have is they can\'t stand to be

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touched. They\'d like to feel a nice feeling of
being held, but touch hurts. Touch is just too

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overwhelming. It\'s like an overwhelming
tidal wave of stimulation. But

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pressure is very calming. Many autistic kids
will get under be-, under mattresses, get

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under cushions, get under rugs,
cause that applies pressure,

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and, I was one of the pressure seekers. I\'d
get under the mattress because it calmed me

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down. It calmed down my nerves.
And, one time when I was

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out on my aunt\'s ranch, I noticed that when they put cattle
in the squeeze shoot, that the pressure of the squeeze shoot

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calmed the cattle down.
So I went and tried it,

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on myself. I got my aunt to try it, do it to me,
so I built a device I could get into that would

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apply pressure that I could control the
amount of pressure. One of the main

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emotions in autism is fear. Change in my schedule
would make me panic. You know, sometimes

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I still a little bit of that problem, but I built
this device I could get into that would apply

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pressure. And, it, it helped to
calm down my nervous system.

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I kind of look at Autism as a
spectrum disorder. Where at 1

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end of the, of the spectrum,
especially the non-verbal,

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autism is primarily a sensory processing
disorder; a person never learns to talk; because

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he could never hear the speech. He was
just hearing jumbles. Find the bunny. The

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bunny. Find the, bunny.

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The bunny! Yay! Good job! Now, at the other
end of the spectrum, you get your ``rain man\"

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savant [sp.] type, where I think that autism
is much more of a cognitive and rigid

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thinking disorder, and the sensory
problems are very very mild. I

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love to walk, I love to key and carry me.

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Of, up, up and up... up, up and windy.

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Typically

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by age 5 or 6, the kids fall into three area-, three
groups. About 50 percent of the children are mentally

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retarded. This one mother said to me,
\"B.J., I didn\'t like it when you told me

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he was retarded, but he learns slowly.\" I
said, \"That\'s what mental retardation is.\"

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Mike and I are going to highlight the word

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Muppet right here. Another 25% of the
children have normal non-verbal intelligence,

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but are still having language problems.
Those are the children that tend to

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show the most improvement, even
into adolescence. Circle. Circle.

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Square. Square. Square.

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Where\'s the triangle?

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Good. Then, there are the children who have

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normal intelligence both verbally and non-verbally,
but have serious social difficulties.

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[sil.]

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One of the things that\'s very important
to understand about autism is

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extreme variability of the disorder.
Autism is nervous system immaturity

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and this varies tremendously. As far as I\'m
concerned, autism is a continual, from

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normal to abnormal. Oh, okay! Bye!

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Hi baby! You ready to go

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to church? Baby, get some tights on!

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Ahh... No, look over here.
Which one do we drive?

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I...uh-huh... I,

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I drive a?

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Car! Good job! I drive a car.
I first started

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noticing something was different about
Clayton when he turned about 18

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months old, and, he really didn\'t have
any words. You know? He could, he

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could say his words. He could say his vowels,
he could say mama and dada, but that

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was about it, and plus, um, his
eye con-, his eye contact,

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uh, was almost nothing. You know, he
would hardly even look at you when you

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said his name, so we thought there might be something
wrong with his, with his hearing. Which is the

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first, thing that you think of,
uh, so of course when he was 2,

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he went through numerous tests to
find out if there was anything

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physically wrong with him. Uh, besides
the hearing tests, numerous tests on his

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brain, to see if there might be a tumor or
something like that. Uh, it\'s the communication

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that\'s the problem with him.
His frustration level and his

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aggression behavior increases
because he cannot tell people

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what he needs, what he is mad about,
uh, what\'s upsetting him. Physically

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he\'s fine, uh, he\'s a very healthy child.
Um, when he\'s in a good mood, he-, he\'s

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a very loving child. Um,
but those compulsive

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obsessive behaviors, uh, happen daily
and it\'s kind of hard to deal with.

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When I was a little

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kid, if adults spoke directly to me, I
could understand them, but if they were

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yacking fast off in the distance, then they went into what I
thought was grown up talk. I actually thought it was a different

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language. I have problems with hard
consonant sounds. I have to figure

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things out in context. If someone
says, \"The airport is fogged in.\"

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I know they\'re not talking about a muddy
bog somewhere, but if you say fog or bog

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just by themselves, I mix them up. There
are many many causes, most likely,

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for this syndrome. That is not a disease.

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I think that is the most important thing. There was
no one test. There was no medical test that one

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does to diagnose autism. There\'s no
blood test to diagnose autism. It is a

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behavioral disorder and the
behavioral criteria need to be met.

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Diagnosis is made based on
the presence and absence

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of symptoms in 4 areas. The first is the way a
child developed. Normal children learn to walk,

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they learn to talk, and they learn to interact with you, so
that by the end of the first year you have a little person

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on your hands. Children who are slower learn those
skills, but learn them at a slower rate. Children

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with autism are up and down. They might
start to develop a skill and stop.

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There may be long transitions
between phases of development,

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and the most common symptom we get is,
kids will start to talk and stop.

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I first noticed, Luke
was, starting to regress,

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um, in between ages 2 and 3. He had,

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at 18 months, he had,
probably, his language was

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probably 25 to 30 words,
and he kept losing words

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in between age 2 and 3 until he, the
only word he would say was apple

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juice. He was using words
and he was singing

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like, Old McDonald Had a Farm. He would sing
E-I-E-I-O, and he had the little games he

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would, you know, little rhyming games,
patty cake, things like that, and he

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quit doing it. Well, I\'d say I
first started noticing changes in

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Clayton, he was about 19
months, and, um, he was

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quieter all of a sudden,
he seemed to be really

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into TV, I mean, just
mesmerized by it, and uh...

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he had been talking prior
to that, you know, at

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one year old I\'d say he had a pretty decent
vocabulary, and then I noticed there\'d be a whole day

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pass where he didn\'t say a word. And
I thought maybe it was his hearing.

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It\'s a difficulty in understanding stim-,
stimuli in all the areas, whether it be

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visual, sight, the children may appear deaf,
they may get overstimulated by lights, they

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may be fascinated with things that spin
in circles. They may flap their hands. We

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think the part of the brain that\'s effected, is the
part of the brain that integrates all of the different

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senses, and one minute the children are, one
way, one minute they\'re the next. If you talk to

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adults with autism they all describe
this problem with sensory input, sensory

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modulation.

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Heeeeey..... And an
immature nervous system is

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like overly sensitive. Sounds that wouldn\'t
be loud to you, hurt my ears like a dentist

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drill going down my ear. You know, a child
might be, might be disruptive in the

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classroom because there\'s just so much noise in
the classroom, he can\'t tolerate it. It\'s like

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living inside a boiler factory. You know,
that\'s why he\'s throwing a fit. Or, he might be

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scared to go to church. I had one parent say that her
child was terrified of church. He was fine in Sunday

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School, but church terrified him, and the reason for
that was, one day a microphone fed back and went,

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\"Eeeeeeeeee,\" in his ears, and he was scared
to death that he\'d be subjected to the

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microphone blasting his ears out. I
know with Luke we have a swimming pool

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and he would be on top of his tree house, and if
the, we\'d flip the skimmer on in the swimming

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pool which we don\'t even hear the skimmer, he would
climb down, no matter where he was, run over and

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turn that skimmer off because that just bothered
him so much! That sound. You know, there has to

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be some concessions about clothing.
Like, even now, I can\'t

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stand scratchy things. I bought a New Jersey
shirt that I was wearing yesterday, and the tag

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was bothering me. I could feel the tag and it was
like this little thing cutting into the back of my

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neck and I\'ve got to cut the tag out of that
shirt. You know, most people wouldn\'t even

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feel that, but to me it was like having
a sharp piece of metal in the back of a

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shirt, just digging into me constantly and
bothering me. Usually the first referral

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for children with autism is the lack of
development in speech and language. Children who,

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early on, if you wanted to make a differential
diagnosis between children who are language delay

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and children who are autistic,
the hallmark of autism is

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the lack of communication. It\'s not that the
children don\'t talk, it\'s they don\'t communicate.

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Cat? Do you want to do a cat?
Want to do a cat,

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or cow. Which one?

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Want to do a cat?

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Or a cow? But, when I would go to the nursery
and call her name, all the other children,

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would turn their heads except for her, and then as
soon as she saw me, she would immediately start

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screaming and demand to be picked up.
Um, you could say to her, ``

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Kendall, would you like a drink?\" and no
response, but then, as soon as she saw the

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milk, she\'d start screaming. We would
call his name, and he wouldn\'t

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respond at all, and yet,

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some small little noise in the other room, like his
favorite candy, you know, unwrapping that candy,

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he would hear that. That\'s the
main thing we noticed. Candy,

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you know, or if we\'d say we\'re putting
the candy here in the drawer, then he\'d

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come in there and get in the drawer, I mean,
there were just definite signs he was hearing,

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alright, but he wasn\'t, he was distractible,
he wasn\'t paying attention, when

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I was talking anymore. The
eye contact wasn\'t good,

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but I didn\'t notice that a great deal.
In retrospect, I

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realize he was just, you know, kind of
looking around, not really focusing on

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me. The final area, and I think probably the most
important, has to do with the development of early social

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skills. The symptoms you can see very early
on have to do with playing baby games.

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Um, I ask parents all the time, \"`Did the child
play baby games?\" The parents will say, \"Yes.\"

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Then the question is did the child initiate the
games? At 6 months, a normal infant is attempting

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to bring you in to their world. What you find
in autism is that it\'s often not the case.

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Shoulders.

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Yay! Now let\'s touch our knees!

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Knees! We have 2 knees!

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Good morning, knees!

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Kendall would always have to have two objects, one
in each hand, and she would just sit on top of the

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stairs, and get 2 inches away from these
objects and just, make all these,

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you know, guttural sounds,
but, I-, she wasn\'t interested

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in, people, she wasn\'t interested in, y-,
anything, except for these little Sesame Street

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toys. She would line them up in
a row, which is very typical,

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and, would be, if you tried to take one of those
objects away, she would, scream and just,

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get real winded and start shaking,
a-a-a-, you know, so you\'d give them

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back, and then she\'d, when she\'d get them back, she\'d immediately
go back into her, own little world. Children with autism

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don\'t learn to imitate the way
normal children do, and if you think

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about how people learn language, how they
learn social skills, they learn by imitation.

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This is what children do. There\'s an impairment
there, not too strange that there\'s an

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impairment in social and
language skills. Come.

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Tell me goodbye!

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I\'m not Christina. My name is Tina.

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Good bye! Oh! Good bye,

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Tony! See, most people get these
little emotional cues all the

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time when they interact. See, I don\'t get that. I
have to go, oh, well the person is folding his arms,

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and that\'s the body language that\'s saying
he may be resisting what I\'m saying.

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I need to change what I\'m saying. I have to do it all with
intellect. In fact, I didn\'t know people had these little

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eye signals until last year when I read a
book about it. I didn\'t even know about

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that. You know, what do you mean? I, I couldn\'t
figure out why eye contact was so important.

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Who knows how to wash their face? Look at
me, Luke. You can do that in a minute.

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I want you to look at me.
Are you looking at me?

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Yeah. His main form of communication
during one period, was

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phrases from videos. In fact that\'s, early
on, that\'s one thing, I\'m not sure if it was

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just before or just after when he got the
diagnosis, but he had very little, uh,

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language. His vocabulary was very limited and I
remember we had watched Pinocchio, the video,

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one night, one evening, and we went out on
the deck after the movie was over, and,

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uh, you know, it was after dark, and
he looked up in the sky and, and

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repeated, uh, a phrase, a lengthy phrase, from,
from Pinocchio about start light star bright,

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first star I see tonight, and it was just like,
just ripped it off, just like that, word for word,

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and, you know, there was a time when he, he
only had a vocabulary of about six words,

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and he repeated this word for word,
and thereafter, for about a year,

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that was his main form of commu-, communication.
He drew, or vocabulary, I guess, he would

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draw phrases from movies, from
Sesame Street, from videos.

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Very often, the children develop an
echolalic language as they get a bit older.

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In my view, it\'s a bit like, uh, saying to a parent
that the child does not have a language of their

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own. They are basically borrowing the
languages of somebody, around them,

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and the remarkable thing is that echolalia,
which means repeating things that you

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
hear, the child may have
echolalia which is immediate.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
That means that I say a word and the child
basically mimics the word and says the word right

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
back, or the echolalia can be delayed.
Ah! Ahhhhh!

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
Ah Ah Ah... Ahhhh-ck.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. What\'s that mean?
Yuck! What does that

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
mean? Yuck. Yuck.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
Yuck. What do they tell Chelsea to do at

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
school? Chelsea, sit down. Chelsea,
sit on the bench. Isn\'t that

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
what they tell her? In reality,
in a five minute well baby check,

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
or a ten minute

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
well baby check, and a five
minute office sick visit, a

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
pediatrician is not going to see a
child having difficulties with play.

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
Let\'s make an eye out of (inaudible)

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
. Very nice. If a child is screaming because
they\'re in the doctor\'s office to begin with,

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
it\'s kind of hard to understand what mom\'s talking
about that the child is tantruming all day, or having

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
behavioral problems all day.
So, pediatricians, and

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
family practitioners, and child neurologists
and child psychiatrists, um, have not,

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
it has not been a key aspect
of, uh, in training, uh,

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
until very recently, when a lot of people
are getting on the, the bandwagon, and

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
deciding that this is a major goal, that people
need to know what to look for and what questions

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
to ask. Look. At me.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
Tear... paper. This is tear.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
I, I think the world of our
pediatrician, but I feel that, um,

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
he probably wasn\'t cued in to
autism, and realized that,

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
you know, these wer-, this was like
an autism spectrum, or could possibly

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
be autistic tendencies. He never
mentioned anything about autism,

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
and when, we decided that we
should take Luke to a neurologist,

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
just to check it out, we
approached our, pediatrician,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
and our pediatrician said, he really
didn\'t think that was the case, but if we

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
wanted to go to a neurologist, he
would go ahead and, um, you know,

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
recommend, which neurologist to go to.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
It is my personal experience
that, when a parent

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
presents to me saying, I think my child\'s
autistic, that, I have never had

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
a parent be wrong. Um, I say, what
I would recommend if a mother

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
or a parent is very concerned
that they think their

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
child may be autistic, or have very similar

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
symptoms, and for whatever reason they are
not happy with the response they\'re getting

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
from their primary care
doctor, or even a specialist,

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
um, that they continue to pursue. As
far as when I thought something was

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
wrong, but I wasn\'t sure what,
um, let me think. I went

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
through one, I was on my third
pediatrician at that time,

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
uh, just do a relocation
and that, um, he really

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
just was not concerned. He said, \"Well,
how many words do you think he can

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
say? \" So I wrote down a list for him, and
he said, \" Oh, that\'s not that out of

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
line for a boy. You know, they\'re often
delayed in speech, but more developed in

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
motor, and, uh, ya know, le-,
let\'s just wait and see.\"

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
So, my sister-in-law recommended
another pediatrician

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
and I went to him and he had a form you
fill out like, yes no, you know? Can a

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
child build a tower of eight blocks? Yes, no, and
as soon as you answered 3 in a row no, then you

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
were to stop, and I think
I got maybe two questions

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
answered out of 20. I mean, he was
very delayed. The majority of

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
pediatricians use something similar
or, or to the Denver Developmental

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
Screening test that asks specific
questions about language and about

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
socialization. It does not
ask, for example, um,

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
what kind of toys, that the child plays
with, and how does he play with those

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
toys. Um, it does not ask if the
play is appropriate. Um, a lot of

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
the milestones for language
where you have two words

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
by two years and three word or more sentences
by three are your global milestones. Don\'t

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
stop and ask, is the child using spontaneous
language or is the child echoing back

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
TV commercials? Because a six word
sentence that\'s from a TV commercial

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
doesn\'t cut it. And, I
wish I may, and I wish my

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
might, ands, and have the
wish I wish tonight.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
Until more and more understanding is, is

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
realized about what the spectrum really, how the
spectrum can present and the variability in

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
that, um, and I think as more and more
people are going out an-, and ta-,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:48.000
talking about their experience, I think more
and more pediatricians are referring early.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
Well, you see, I\'m almost 50-years-old so most
doctors did not know about autism. My original

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
diagnosis was brain damaged, and
the autism label didn\'t come on

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
until a while later. But, fortunately
I got referred to a very good

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
speech therapy school, and the teacher I had
in that school is as good as any teacher

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
today. I can\'t emphasize enough the importance of good teachers.
I think these teachers are born, I don\'t think they are

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
trained. Mrs. Reynolds was just one of these
wonderful teachers, just knew how to work, work

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
with, with kids, and the things that
she wo-, did with me, you know,

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
uh, 45, you know, more than 45 years ago are
the same things that good teachers do today.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
Ideally a child, a preschool child,
should be in a classroom with intensive

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
communication emersion, so that speech
and language therapy doesn\'t occur

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
30 minutes 3 times a week, only, but occurs

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
every day. And two hands. And two hands.
Okay. I drew one arm, now it\'s your

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
turn. My hand! Oh very

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
good! Kendall was in, uh, you know, uh, public school
and, immediately, as soon as I found out, I had her in

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
special, you know, private schools, at to. Um,
but still, she was in a class with eight other

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
kids; down syndrome, cerebral
palsy, um, she was by far the

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
worst. And, so, you know, the 1
teacher and the 1 aid in that class,

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
they\'ve got to address a program that addressed
all of those kids, but they\'re so different,

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
and when I put her, finally in a public school
because of the expense, again she was in a

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
classroom with eight other kids, different diagnoses,
um, one of the boys who, eh, eh, the next year, ended

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
up in my daughter, who is
severely retarded\'s class,

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
but, they just look at these children and think okay
this is what we can allot these children, but you

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
have got to look at these kids, as, different. There\'s a lot
of different programs out there making a lot of different

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
claims, but the most important
thing is, getting enough hours a

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
week of one-on-ones. You\'ve got to keep the kid
connected to the world. When I was a little

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
kid, I used to shut the world out because the world hurt,
so what you need to do is you have to have a teacher do a

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
lot of 1-on-1s, but you\'ve got to adjust the
environment so you don\'t have the kinds of noise and

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
things that makes them shut out the world. I mean, I
was a kid who liked to go to the supermarket, but

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
some of the more severe kids, it might take them a
day to get over a trip to the supermarket because

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
it\'s very very over stimulating. So, you have
got to get a lot of hours of one-on-ones,

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
but you\'ve got to be in a quiet environment. And, and
with some of the lower functioning kids you need to

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
just use one sensory channel at a time.
They can\'t see and hear at the same time.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
Turn the page. Good!

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
You need to follow along while I read.
Batman was the greatest crime fighter in

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
Gotham City. Whenever criminals, uh,
you need to follow me. Now I had

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
3 Miss Manner\'s Meals every day.
That took about an hour and a half

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
of time. That was part of my treatment. Where I had to set
the table, and I had to have manners and I had to behave,

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
and I had to stay connected to the world and I
couldn\'t sit and stem while I was at the table.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
I had, I went to speech therapy school, and
then my mother hired a nanny that just

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
played with me and my sister all afternoon,
keeping me engaged. Aren\'t you going to play it?

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
Uh-huh. One. Two. Three.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Very nice!
That was perfect! Way

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:28.000
to go! Now what? Luke seemed to go
through, through transitional changes, I

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
think at first, shortly after
his diagnosis, of autism,

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
he, uh, I think he, he
had little interest in

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
our world and such. He more or
less had his own world, and really

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
wasn\'t interested and just didn\'t bother
recognizing our world, and he, I think the next

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
stage, he began to recognize it.
Probably wasn\'t that thrilled with it,

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
but began to tolerate it, and I think now
he\'s at the point where he recognizes that,

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
he is, part of, the same world we are...

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
and he\'s interested in being a part of it.
He enjoys it, and I

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
think he, he really wants to be a part
of it, and be an interactive, um,

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
member in class and, and in social
situations and play situations

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
as well. The greatest thing, I
guess, has to be actually wanting to

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
be friends with other children,
wanting to interact; we never

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
saw that, and he wants to be a part, he
wants to be a line leader. He raises his

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
hand to give answers in class. Snap!

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
Aw! I actually, for a while, had a
job with a free lock construction

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
company, and I started to do some deciding there.
There was a very good draftsman there named

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
David, and the way I learned
drafting, was I watched David,

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
then I would, then I went out and bought the same
kind of pencils and everything that David had,

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
and I just started copying like the way that
David drew. I didn\'t never traced his drawings,

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
but I would, I sort of, I sort of like, pretended I
was David and I couldn\'t believe the nice drafting

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
I did. But once I just sketch out
the most basic layout of the

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
system, then I can see the whole system. You want
me to see it in metal? You want me to see it in

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
concrete? I can see it either way. I can see
the animals going through it, I can see it

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
for washing it down and cleaning it, in fact,
a lot of people don\'t know how to design

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
something for cleaning. See, it\'s very easy for me to
imagine, you know, where the water\'s going to go. I

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
think what makes autism such a difficult
disorder to deal with is what the children

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
have the most trouble learning is what society
prizes the most, and that\'s how do you interact

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
socially with other people. The reality of the
situation is that it doesn\'t matter how smart

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
you are, if you can\'t get along
in society and any treatment

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
program has to focus on this difficulty
in social communication skills.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
I will have, I\'m thirsty too. Are you
thirsty today? I\'m thirsty too. What

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
kind of juice is this? Hillary, look at
this. What kind of juice is that? Can

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
you tell? It\'s yellow. It is yellow juice.
Do you smell?

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
Smell? Stop it! I smell. Do you

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
smell? Learning social skills is like a, is like
having a part in a play, and autistics need

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
coaches on how they are supposed
to act in certain situations.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
I mean, the real complicated kind of, you know, like romance
relationships I, that\'s just not part of my life. I know how

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
to do social relations, for, you know,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
like at a job. I\'ve learned, you know, you
don\'t go into the, you don\'t go into a

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
plant and tell them they\'re stupid jerks.
That isn\'t, doesn-, I used to

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
do stuff like that. I\'ve learned how to tell customers
diplomatically that something they\'re doing is

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
wrong, and, and I\'ve learned
that by experience...

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
and, and I, but it\'s all
learned intellectually.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
In fact, I\'ve gotten very good at,
at, at being diplomatic because I

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
approach strictly as logic. You know,
I\'ve, you know I\'ll tell people that

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
they\'re doing something wrong, but I\'ve
learned to do it so I don\'t make them angry.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
Once the diagnosis of autism has been

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
made and an effective treatment
program has been sought, many

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
questions still remain in the minds of parents.
Such as how the child will progress, and to what

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
degree he will be able to function
in society. Unfortunately, there are

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
no easy answers to such questions.
Due to the wide spectrum of

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
symptoms, the outcome of each child with
autism may vary significantly. Those

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
with mild autistic symptoms
communicate surprisingly well by the

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
time they\'ve reached 5 or 6 years of age. Children
who fall into this category are virtually

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
normal, both socially and verbally
in their assimilation into society.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
On the other end of the spectrum, there
are those who, by the time they reach the

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
adolescent and adult years, have little or no
significant change from the type of behavior

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
expressed at ages three or four. This
type of person often struggles with

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
ritualistic behavior, continues to
experience difficulty with eye to eye

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
contact, displays little or no
language development, and often

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
exhibits severe social and behavioral
problems. Adults with this more

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
pronounced form of autism often exhibit a lack
of self-control and a higher frequency and

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
intensity of self-inflicted injuries.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
The majority of children diagnosed with
autism fall somewhere between these two

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
extremes. They are children who have varying
degrees of learning disabilities and who

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
require special assistance and training.
Though they may be able to perform

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
normal jobs, and function adequately in
society, they, never the less, may require some

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
sheltering and help with decision making.
Other than this,

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
they can live relatively normal lives. You
have to get away from the notion there\'s

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
something wrong. It\'s not anything
wrong, it means the brain

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
works differently. Being autistic is
just a part of who the child is, and,

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
the message we have to give
the children is it\'s ok.

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:35.000
[music]