Jeff Stimpson
Today’s post is by Jeff Stimpson, author of the books Alex: The Fathering of a Preemie and Alex the Boy: Episodes From a Family’s Life With Autism. Hear more from Jeff and his wife, Jill Cornfield, on their fantastic blog, AutismVox, and be sure to check out their podcast.
My wife Jill and I spend a lot of time wondering how our son Alex (10, with autism) will get along in adulthood. By “get along” I mean “make a living,” and by “wondering” I mean “terrified.” What skills does he have? What skills can he learn? Is there any evidence at all that Alex possesses the sense, wherewithal and out-and-out cunning needed to survive this world?
If we ask him, he can’t tell us, since he’s only semi-verbal and sentences are still rare pearls from him. So instead he decides to show us.
He comes into the kitchen asking for crackers, or Saltines. We don’t like him to have Saltines, because they make roach-attracting crumbs all over our living room floor. We prefer pretzels. Alex prefers crackers. “Cra-KERS?” he says, pointing to the cabinet.
“How about pretzels, Alex?”
“How about crackers?” he replies.
Nothing new: He was barely two-years-old on the afternoon he wanted the can of Pringles that sat atop the dishwasher (a surprising number of Alex’s problems involve salty snacks that are out of his reach). Alex opened the door of the dishwasher, climbed up on it and got the Pringles. “I love it!” his physical therapist exclaimed at the time. “Problem solving!”
The problem the other night was our cat, Toast, who was on Ned’s bed at bedtime. Alex didn’t want her there; he tends to shoo her off furniture, and it was weeks before we figured out that he figured out that Toast should never be allowed on the dining room table. So, bedtime: Alex keeps getting out of bed to shoo Toast down, but I keep herding him back to bed, telling him Toast has every right to sleep on Ned’s bed. Ned wants to read. Alex reaches over beside his own bed and clicks the lamp on and off. “Ned, if Alex turns off the light,” I ask, “do you want me to get you a flashlight?” Yes, Ned replies. Alex clicks off the light and leaves it off. I get up to get a flashlight from the nearby hallway. When I’ve returned to the bedroom, I see that Alex has, in my quick absence, shooed Toast off Ned’s bed.
And after one recent nasty moment of his behavior, Jill took him into the bathroom for a lecture. She shut the door; Alex tried to turn the knob and open the door, and Jill held the door closed with the flat of her hand. Alex tried the knob, but Jill told him he was staying right here while she talked to him. She’d probably gotten out at least a couple of sentences containing words like “Alex” and “naughty” when he slipped on his Little Challenged Boy face and decided to lighten the moment by singing a song with mommy.
He sang softly and began to clap. “All right, Alex, you want to sing?” said Jill. She joined in – figuring this was just the sort of heartwarming activity a good mom does with her little boy with autism – with the singing and the clapping, and when she took her hand off the door to clap Alex grabbed the knob and flung open the door and ran out. I grow increasingly sure he will one day try that on a boss.
