Intuitive Learner – Toddler to Preschool November 11, 2009

By Corrin Howe

(In the first installment of this series, I introduced Jonathan who, as an infant and toddler, was a puzzle to us. He was intellectually superior to his peers but developmentally behind them. Today’s post follows Jonathan from toddler through his preschool years.)

Our state mandated that all public schools offer all-day Kindergarten by a certain school year. Our county decided to phase in the mandate as school construction opened the necessary space to accommodate the influx of students. Jonathan’s home school received the first construction funds, putting him on track to be enrolled in the first all day kindergarten class.

Even though Jonathan was only three and a half years old at the time, I knew he wouldn’t be ready for all day kindergarten without some help. I tried to enroll him in various half day preschool programs; however, he failed to meet the first requirement – potty trained. We worked on potty training for nearly a year and a half with no discernable end in sight.

My husband was active duty military at the time, so the entire family was under the care of military doctors in the base clinic. If I recall correctly, the pediatric clinic was filled beyond capacity, so Jonathan was moved into the “family clinic” for his care. So, one day when I was seeing the doctor, I mentioned my concern about Jonathan’s development. She asked me a few questions and then administered some basic developmental tests to Jonathan.

She handed me a referral to Walter Reed Army Hospital, which was the closest full service hospital to our military base. She sent us to the Child Development Clinic. We sat on a waiting list for four months. While we waited for an available appointment day, the clinic sent us a package of paperwork to complete and return.

I think I cried with joy and relief as I read through the questions. During the last three and a half years, I would share things about Jonathan with my friends. They would try to comfort and reassure me with the standard phrase, “(Their child’s name) is the same way. I wouldn’t worry about it.” It didn’t matter what behavior I wanted to insert. “Jonathan screams when I cut his nails.” “Jonathan acts like I’m ripping his limbs out when I put him in the bathtub.” “Jonathan always covers his ears and complains when we turn on household appliances.” I was frustrated with my friends because they didn’t seem to give me credit for the other two children I had who didn’t behave the same way.

The surveys addressed all the behaviors which concerned me and more. The day finally came when we saw the child psychologist. She gave us a diagnosis which finally explained the wide disparity between Jonathan’s developmental delays and his intellectual advancements. Asperger’s Syndrome. While not all people diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome have superior intellectual capabilities, Jonathan happens to be one who does.

Two years after this diagnosis, we received the same diagnosis from a private civilian psychologist, who also administered IQ tests as part of his evaluation. Jonathan tests at the low end of the “superior” range in non-verbal areas and average to high average in verbal areas. Since this intellectual testing, his school administered two other IQ and cognitive assessments in which the scores were consistent with earlier findings. Interestingly, Jonathan’s lowest scores and highest scores in these kinds of assessments are consistently two standard deviations apart, indicating a verbal learning disability.

Testing only confirmed what we observed about Jonathan. He didn’t start talking until he was twenty-five months old. He had trouble with figurative language. If I said, “Hold your horses!” He’d be upset with me. “I don’t have any horses!” The original psychologist told us to avoid idioms, but it is really hard. One day Jonathan was telling a whopper of a story. My husband just nodded and said, “Uh huh. I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck you know.” Jonathan exclaimed, “What?” Scott caught himself and regrouped, “I mean, I wasn’t born yesterday.” Again Jonathan demanded, “What?’ Finally, Scott chuckled at himself, “I mean I think you’re making up a story.”

However, Jonathan would sit in the furthest seat in the mini-van and quiz me, “Mama, what’s four plus four take away two?” I learned early in his life to turn the question back on him, “I don’t know. You tell me.” He said, “Six!” He was only four at the time. I told this to his new preschool vice principal. The VP’s eyes popped out of his head, “What TV shows is he watching?”

His older brother thought he was smart because he was in 6th grade algebra. Not to be outshined by his four year old brother, Joshua taunted Jonathan, “But you don’t know what three squared is.” Of course, Jonathan didn’t know the answer, but he wanted to know. He quizzed my husband for the next 20 minutes about squaring all single digit numbers. At the end of the twenty minutes, Jonathan was able to square numbers himself. And from that day on, he understood that two squared was – “two, two times.” And three squared was counting “three three times.” As long has he had enough fingers and toes at his disposal, he could figure out the square of numbers himself.

The diagnosing psychologist told us that Jonathan was “one step” below “Rainman” as she tried to explain Asperger’s to us. When he was about four, we noticed Jonathan seemed to “count” or estimate very fast or very accurately. I dumped a bag of M&Ms on the table. We played various math games. At one point we were down to just a pile of red and blue candies on the table. I asked him to count out twenty for me. He looked at the pile and in one swipe of the hand he said, “There.” I counted. It was twenty. He didn’t even count (at least it didn’t seem he had time to county).

In preschool, he went through a second set of IEP evaluations when we asked for speech services. The school psychologist said he completed puzzle tests at four years old that many of the ten year olds she tested couldn’t complete.

Jonathan’s original diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome was enough to qualify him for preschool in a mainstream setting in our local public school. However, our push for speech and language services resulted in a loss of his Individualized Education Plan. His high IQ and lack of behavioral problems convinced the school team Jonathan no longer fit the eligibility requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act.

We spent the summer between his preschool and kindergarten year fighting with the school board for reconsideration of their position on Jonathan’s need for speech and language services.

Corrie Howe started her professional career as a journalist and freelance writer. She stopped writing for money twenty years ago and became a stay-at-home mother of three children ranging from 7 to 17. The middle son has Asperger’s Syndrome which she blogs about at Just Because My Pickle Talks Doesn’t Make Me An Idiot.

Intuitive Learner – Infant to Toddler November 10, 2009

By Corrin Howe

One of the primary logos associated with autism is a puzzle with a piece missing. I love the idea of a puzzle because it defines many moments of our nine-year journey with autism. Three weeks after birth Jonathan started crying everyday like clockwork from 4:00 p.m. to between 8 to 10:00 p.m. My husband and I fell into our bed only two or three days into this ten-month period of daily crying.

“You had a baby before. What do you think is wrong?” my husband asked.

“Josh was an easy baby. He didn’t do this. But I looked it up in a baby book today. I think it might be colic,” I answered.

We tried everything. We read everything. We asked for advice. We talked to the doctor. Nothing seemed to console the inconsolable infant. We began to realize that noise, activity and large numbers of people were the triggers for hours of crying to follow.

Then our son turned a year old. Instead of crying all night long, he stopped communicating. We only knew he was awake if we checked on him. I often wondered how long he’d sit in the dark in his crib waiting for someone to come get him.

At that age my other two children were crawling out of the crib, crawling out of the stroller and climbing over baby safety gates, Jonathan sat basically where I put him. For a while I really enjoyed how easy he was. I didn’t have to worry about leaving him alone. I didn’t go nuts having to put all my pots and pans back into the cabinets after he pulled them all out. I could put him in a stroller and walk for miles and he’d sit content with a box of raisins and his bottle.

Then came the days when I started to worry about the fact he wasn’t trying to crawl. He wasn’t trying to investigate all the “not for Jonathan” items in the house. When he was ten months old he said “ball” and “Bob” appropriately. Then he stopped saying these two words. He was 17 months old and he wasn’t saying anything, not even “Mama” or “Dada.”

However, when he did start to crawl, he crawled immediately. I’d lived in this house for almost two years and had never seen any of my friend’s crawling infants attempt the step between my kitchen and living room. One day I left Jonathan in the living room to check on food in the kitchen. Jonathan didn’t like being left along and let me know about it. When I didn’t come back to get him, he crawled to me. On his first time he attempted to crawl, he crawled from the living room into the kitchen including climbing the step up into the kitchen.

There were other things like this over the years. He couldn’t or didn’t do something. He didn’t even attempt to do it. Then one day he decided he would do it. And he did. Perfectly. It was this way with crawling. It was this way with walking. It was this way with opening doors in the house.

At his 24-month check up, he still wasn’t talking. The doctor suggested we start the protocol evaluation for autism. The first evaluation was for hearing. Since my older son had severe ear infections, two sets of tubes and was in the process of hearing tests, I knew Jonathan’s issue wasn’t hearing. However, the doctor insisted we follow the protocol.

We went to the test. Jonathan was placed in a sound proof booth with huge earphones placed on his head. Remember, he’s not verbal, so I wasn’t sure how they were going to test his hearing. The lady sat outside a two-way glass and pushed hundreds of buttons. At the end of the test, Jonathan was declared to have a thirty percent hearing loss. I asked the basis of the opinion. The doctor explained she was looking for Jonathan’s eyes to look to the side of his head where the noise was played. I knew Jonathan was more fascinated with what she was doing outside the booth than he was about the noises. The doctor recommended immediate tubes in the ears. I picked up my toddler and left. I never went back. I told the referring physician I wasn’t going through her protocol any longer.

By the end of the month Jonathan was saying “Mama” and “Dada.” Two months later (when he was twenty-seven months old) out of nowhere he said, “Josh pushed and I bumped my head.” We were in a hotel lobby with my in-laws. We all almost fell off our chairs. He went from no words to seven word sentences in three months.

And so it went for the first three and a half years of Jonathan’s life. On the one hand he was behind his peers when it came to meeting developmental milestones like smiling, crawling, talking, potty training, etc. Yet, on the other hand, he was, in many ways, so far ahead of his peers.

Even without the ability to talk, he was fascinated with the alphabet. He’d indicate his desire for me to write out the alphabet over and over and over again. He liked seeing me draw the letters. He could point out the letters if I asked him to point them out.

He was putting together jig-saw-puzzles.

He was playing practical jokes. Who expects a three year old to purposely hide a puzzle piece until everyone gives up looking for it? Then he calmly pulls it out from under his leg. Who expects a three year old to hide his favorite blanket in a hotel nightstand and sit there calmly while two adults and two teenagers search and back-track the entire hotel for an hour? And when everyone falls onto the double beds panicked about what the night holds without the treasured blanket, he walks over to the bottom drawer and triumphantly pulls out the blanket and announces with a huge smile, “Here it is!”

How could a little guy be so smart while being so far behind? Look for future posts to find out.

Corrie Howe started her professional career as a journalist and freelance writer. She stopped writing for money twenty years ago and became a stay-at-home mother of three children ranging from 7 to 17. The middle son has Asperger’s Syndrome which she blogs about at Just Because My Pickle Talks Doesn’t Make Me An Idiot.