Heroes & Helping Children

    I met an old school teacher of mine today who made me think about my own childhood - for the first time in ages - and how children with autistic conditions are given structure and discipline through education and their families.

     You may have heard of Dr Temple Grandin, who is a hero of mine. She is a doctor of animal science, a professor at Colorado State University and a consultant to the livestock industry. She also has high-functioning autism - and her ability to cogently discuss her own view of the world, whilst "feeling the fear and doing it anyway." Seriously, she is an awesome woman - I recommend her wiki entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin) and this speech she gave (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wt1IY3ffoU).

    The reason she is one of my heroes is because of her ability to successfully weave her jobs in with her condition and become incredibly successful with what she has done. Also, she’s had a very supportive family around her, who have fought for her all the way, and had teachers right from the word go who set her consistent boundaries and gave her a firm framework to work within. Although she admits that her high school days were the “worst of her life”, she also acknowledges that she had a lot of supportive mentors right from primary school – and a mother who never stopped believing in her.

    I’m fortunate too; I’ve got a family who are incredibly supportive of me, with parents who have always been there for me (although I suspect they might well have considered adoption if I’d pushed them much further!). They gave me boundaries and a structure to my life which I needed; although I often pushed back against those boundaries, and tested my parents’ patience to the limit, to know I had that structure whilst I was struggling to understand my dyspraxia meant more to me than I’ve probably admitted in the past.

    I’ve met children with autism-spectrum disorders who can often appear out of control, and when you speak to their parents, you get the response; “It’s not their fault, they’re autistic.”

     As you may have guessed, I disagree with that statement!

    While I accept that autistic-spectrum children may well need to be approach differently in some regards, they still need guidance, support and discipline from adults. I know how tough it can be – I look back through my rather jumbled memories and see how much my parents must have had to deal with – but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

    Just because you’re on the autistic spectrum doesn’t mean that your behaviour should be "excused" – by anyone. Whether a child has autism or not, they can be shown how respect and manners can be an important part of their life. Yes, it might be harder work, and yes, extra support is vital, but no-one should be left out of learning anything just because it's more difficult.

    My cousin Tom is 6 and has autism – and is a lovely boy. He has two parents who love him intensely and have given him a basis to his life that he can use to develop his own skills, likes and dislikes, and friendships – like any other children. Before Tom came along, his parents (like a lot of people) didn’t know much about the condition, but threw themselves into learning about it, so they could manage its impact on their son and themselves. By understanding how Tom feels, and why he reacts to situations in certain ways, they’re giving him the best chance in life to become whoever he wants to be.

    Whenever I hear someone say “Oh, they’re autistic / have Asperger’s / are dyspraxic” in relation to a child, I almost hear a verbal shrug behind those words. Living with the condition is tough – I’m dyspraxic, so I understand – but I’ve had the support and love of people who have never used that verbal shrug about me. I’ve been taught that it's good to have ambition, and that I can achieve anything - and never to think I’m second-best because I have dyspraxia.

    Talking to my ex-school teacher today (Mrs Brown, who I still think fondly of even after 20 years have passed), she commented on the children she had seen pass through the school gates with a variety of conditions, and some of the strategies she’d developed in order to teach and inspire them. There are a lot more teachers (often unsung) out there, who inspire their own students in the same way, and I applaud their tenacity. To have teachers who are champions of equal access to education is what it should all be about – for me, Mrs Brown eased my entrance to secondary school with a kind word and a supportive attitude and, while my school days were never the happiest, teachers like her made it all the more bearable – and sometimes downright fun!

    Children deserve the best start in life they can possibly get; I was very fortunate to be loved and supported by my family, and it's wonderful to see that, as understanding about the autistic spectrum develops, so does the support network for both people with the condition and their families.

Dyspraxia & Work

    It can be strange, sometimes, how your dyspraxia often affects you in ways you don't always expect - and, no matter how many years you have to acclimatise to the condition, it will never cease to surprise you.

    For me, the latest occasion was this week, when I found out that I'd got a new job. It's a job I've been hoping to get for some time, and so to get the phone call telling me I'd got it was such an awesome feeling; anyone who's got a job they really want will know what I mean.

    Anyway, for the next couple of hours, I was as much use as a chocolate teapot; I dropped paperwork, knocked over books, forgot my password half a dozen times ... well, the list goes on. And on. And, quite possibly, on.

    I'm 30 now (D-Day - or B-Day - was last week, when I finally went kicking and screaming out of my 20's) and that's precisely how long I've had my dyspraxia. I've become a lot more adjusted to life with the condition, but when I have days like that - when my brain and body resolutely refuse to talk to each other - I've learnt to just go with the flow.

    For most of my life, I would have been bothered by that; having a day when my body doesn't seem to work. Now, however, I'm more inclined to laugh it off and just accept it. Why? Because I accept it as just being part of me; I can't change it - and don't want to change it, because it inspires me to be accepting and patient with others far more because I know what it's like to have an "invisible" condition.

    When I have a day where my dypraxia really comes to the fore, I just shrug my shoulders and get on with it; the next day, I was lugging a leaflet stand around and not letting anything get in my way. I'm fortunate to have got my new job, and I've proved to any residual demons residing in my own head that I can do a lot of things; I sometimes just have to think of different ways of approaching things. Dyspraxic people are creative and intelligent (at least that's what I tell myself!), so don't be afraid to put yourself out there and try things. If I can do it, I know you can.

Dyspraxia & BSL

    I've written before about my cross-over experiences between British Sign Language (BSL) and dyspraxia (find it here - http://vikingbay.blogspot.com/2010/11/dyspraxia-emotions-sign-language.html - if you want to take a look), and I wanted to follow that up today.

    I previously discussed how BSL is a totally visual language, and how it relies a lot on having an understanding of facial expressions and body language: two things that DCD and autistic spectrum disorder sufferers can really struggle with. I know I did, and although I've got better at reading people, I'm still not brilliant at it.

    However, today I want to talk about the physical side of signing, and how my dyspraxia impacts on that. As anyone with the condition will know, dyspraxia strongly impacts your fine and gross motor skills; everything from grip to balance, from hand-eye coordination to handwriting and from gait to speech. BSL, on the other hand, relies on ... well, a lot of those things for communication.

    All sign languages are different in content; BSL and ASL (American Sign) are different enough to be different languages, despite the hearing people of both countries sharing a common language (well, for the most part - jello isn't a real word, surely??). However, all sign languages are gestural; signs replace speech in communicating thoughts, and as a dyspraxic person, I've sometimes struggled to accurately convey my thoughts because of my lack of coordination.

    For me, finger-spelling and numbers are the worst. Unlike ASL, BSL users use both hands for the alphabet, and certain letters (L, M and N, for example) always cause me trouble; thankfully, none of them appear in my name (Smithy, of course), but still - frustrating when I'm trying to spell something out.

    When I was younger, I had trouble with my speech - I simply couldn't pronounce certain words and letters - and so had to have intensive speech therapy to correct the problem. Whether that issue was down to verbal dyspraxia or not, I don't know, but it was still incredibly frustrating - and hard work to correct, although I'm so grateful to my speech therapist for teaching me how to almost completely remove the problem (I have a minor lisp and stutter, but barely noticeable).

    After I started learning BSL, I came up against my dyspraxia as I tried to coordinate my arms in creating the signs . For a while, it almost felt as if I had a "sign stutter", as my arms would occasionally not work in time with my head, and I had to repeat the sign in order to make sure it was clear.

    In all honesty, BSL has been a huge help to my arm coordination. When I realised the problem, I began tackling it almost in the same way as my speech therapist had done with my verbal issues, although I didn't realise I was doing it. I practised the same signs over and over again, making them smoother and faster; this, of course, had the added benefit of improving my sign retention as well as making it look a lot more "natural" - that is, as if I didn't have dyspraxia!

    I do still struggle with it; wherever possible, I try and rehearse what I'm going to sign in my head before I do it, just so I can try and make sure my arm movements are as fluid as possible. It doesn't always work, though, and my "sign stutter" does still come back! With practice, though, I suspect that will reduce, as did my verbal speech problems.

    It's ironic; I never suspected that BSL would help me quite so much. I'd started learning the language because I was fascinated by its beauty and how it would open up communication with a group of people in society who I'd never felt able to get close to before. Now, however, nearly a year on, I've learnt so much more about myself as well; how my dyspraxia works ... and how, in certain contexts, I can learn to control and overcome it to be a more effective signer.

    I certainly never thought BSL and dyspraxia would have those sorts of links. Shows how wrong I could be - and how learning new things can often increase your confidence in the most unexpected of ways. Never be frightened of trying something new - you never know where it might take you!