I’m going to start with a story, a silly story of imaginary characters, each of them, autisticOK, here we go.

Oscar was a quirky child, considered odd by his peers. Having the solitary personality trait, he tended to love spending time, was very logical and practical alone.
Unlike his school mate Owen who had the sensitive personality trait and liked lots of gentle reassurance, Oscar was easily disturbed by intimacy and expectations that he ‘share his feelings’ on demand.
Having the vigilant personality trait, Oscar prefer to watch from the peripheries, was good at being on guard, reactive but found it hard to trust and found entanglements with others, too socially claustrophobic even though Owen had the Dependent personality trait and loved to be taken care of and feared taking independent action.
Oscar also had the idiosyncratic personality trait which made him a natural non-conformist, an innovator, and he was naturally oblivious to the so called ‘normality’ that those without this personality trait took for granted as ‘normal. Owen, by contrast, had the conscientious personality trait which drove him to be a perfectionist, ever fixated on the fine details.

Their teacher had a daughter, Olive, had the artistic personality trait which was why she was always fiddling with things, fixated on colors, lines, patterns and was far better at creating and hands on learning than she was at passively watching DVDs like details-oriented Owen, or caught up in an invisible inner world like idiosyncratic Oscar. And Olive was also a giver, with the self sacrificing personality trait, which was why she found giving much much easier than accepting things from others which made her too aware of her own existence.

Now there’s a boy very like Oscar who lives in the next state, named Ari. Except, Ari had relatives on one side of the family with allergies and on the other side with gut disorders. Unlike Oscar, Ari started getting ill once his mother’s immunity wore off when he was 6 months old. After that, the primary immune deficiency he’d inherited started to show itself, one bug at a time. By the time Ari was 2 he was sick every 6 weeks, had rashes and dark circles under his eyes, unable to gain weight and constantly swinging between diarrheoa and constipation. The antibiotics he was put on for the next decade only made things worse.

And there’s a boy very like Owen who lives in another country, called Alberto. Except, unlike Owen, Alberto was a healthy child but right from the start he was so very uncoordinated. He was late to walk and couldn’t easily find how to use his muscles to help with continence and bowel movements or how to use his mouth, lips and tongue to form intelligible speech. Alberto had relatives with dyslexia on one side of the family and dyspraxia on the other.

And there was a girl very like Olive who lived around the corner, called Alice. Except unlike Olive, Alice had relatives on one side of the family with addictions, OCD, Tourette’s and depression and on the other side of the family with bipolar and agoraphobia. Alice was a healthy child as were most of her cousins until they were in their teens and early adulthood when many would develop psychiatric problems. But with two parents with these sorts of challenges, Alice got a double whammy and instead of having these problems in her teens and adulthood, they started when she was 2 and by age 3 they were full blown and made it very hard for her to relax and these conditions kept her so busy, she struggled to develop like other toddlers.

Alice also had a cousin, Anna, who was so very different to her. Anna often appeared deaf but could repeat whole TV shows. She would tap and shake objects, holding them out at the corner of her eyes, but she often wouldn’t use anything until she saw other people use them. She was often distressed by anyone’s arms coming toward her and acted like everyone was a stranger though other times would climb all over strangers and often look at people peripherally or bit by bit.

One day Oscar’s parents heard there was treatment for his autism so they took him to get all kinds of diets and supplements and immune boosters and medication. But the parents found to their dismay that nothing helped. Oscar, who had never had health issues, seemed destined to remain autistic.

One day Owen’s parents heard about brain gym and cranio sacral therapy to ‘help’ him. But Owen, who had never been dyspraxic and who had no problem with the flow of nutrition to the brain via cerebral spinal fluid, was just as autistic as he always was.

One day Olive’s parents heard about sensory integration therapy and tinted lenses and swimming with dolphins (she liked that part) which they were told would make her happier, give her a more complete life. But after spending the money they’d saved for her art supplies, Olive, who had never had significant visual perceptual or sensory integration disorders was as autistic as ever.

Ari’s parents heard that crystal healing could cure autism and they heard about ABA being able to make kids act ‘normal’. But afterwards, Ari, who had immune deficiencies these things could never treat, was just as physically ill as he always was, and certainly still his usual autistic self.

Alberto’s parents heard that color therapy and sound therapy worked with ‘these kids’ so after spending the money for his Christmas bike, horse riding and summer camp, they were disappointed that Alberto, whose severe dyspraxia didn’t involve significant sensory perceptual disorders, was just as autistic as before.

Alice’s parents took out a double mortgage on their home to travel around the world to Kasikstan where they’d heard of an ancient shaman with healing hands, but afterwards, in the homeless shelter, they learned that Alice’s inherited mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders were untouched and she was just as autistic as she’d ever been.

Anna’s parents abducted the prince of Antarctica and held him ransom until they got the money to pay for her to go to a residential aversives program where she’d be fitted with electrodes to deliver shocks whenever she indulged in her strange behaviours. When she came back home for the holidays, the parents were disappointed to find Anna, whose behaviour was perfectly normal for a child with severe visual and verbal agnosias, was still autistic.

Oh, and there was another autistic child, Jamie, who had the same personality traits and challenges of all the other children put together. He had a sensible GP who got him a referal to a good immunologist, gastroenterologist, dietician and naturopath for his gut and immune disorders, a good referal to an OT and an osteopath who had qualifications in Cranio Sacral therapy and had worked with Dyspraxia.
The GP also knew of a speech therapist who did augmented communication training, a behvioural opthamologist who knew about visual perceptual disorders and a audiologist who had extensive experience in language processing disorder. Finally, the GP refered the family to a psychiatrist who understood about mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders which ran in their family. All the while, the family took their time and spread out their finances to make sure Jamie got his bike and went horse riding, went on the summer camp and spent time being silly and enjoying himself in his own autistic way. When Jamie’s co-ordination improved, when he was able to better understand what he heard, read and saw, when he could manage his emotions without being afraid of feelings and when he was no longer physically ill all the time, his parents were delighted to find their autistic little boy was a happier, healthier, more stable autistic little boy.

🙂 Donna Williams
author of Autism; An Inside Out Approach
http://www.donnawilliams.net