Perception

I have always been in love with art. It doesn't matter what kind it is. I love it all.

I remember signing up for my very first painting class when I began high school. The class was held in a second story, corner classroom of my old brick high-school. It was one of the original classrooms, had super tall ceilings with duct work hanging out of the plaster, and floor to ceiling windows along two walls. It was the sunniest, most magnificent room I'd ever been in and was the work place of an art teacher I admire to this day. He inspired my dream of becoming an art teacher myself and I have always dreamed of teaching in that particular classroom.

This teacher had collected a variety of art work from students over the years and these perfect pieces adorned the classroom walls with bright colors and an impressive sense of three-dimensional skill. I was slightly intimidated at the time and didn't think I'd ever be able to make art like that. This feeling, along with the encouragement of the teacher, drove me to give art making an honest try.

I immediately fell in love with the smell of canvas, paint thinner, and the ease with which painting came to me. Over the next couple years I proceeded to take every art class the school had to offer in a variety of classrooms not half as awesome as my original painting classroom. After I'd taken them all, I asked my school counselor if I could keep taking painting.

He told me I had to ask my original painting teacher for special permission to take advanced painting classes in his classroom. "Advanced" painting in high-school actually meant, "the same painting class over and over again." The only thing that actually "advanced" was my ability and that was a direct result of my teacher's ability to teach students with differing skill levels during the same hour. He let me in.

My goal in "advanced" painting was to paint photograph-like copies of various things. I'd worry about abstracting and creating "original" ideas through art later, but first I wanted to master realism.

I became obsessed with painting trees to look like trees, water to look like water, and faces to look exactly like the faces I was trying to replicate. I wanted a person to be able to look at my painting and say, "Oh! That's so and so!" I sucked at this by the way. It was never a natural gift and I had to learn how by working hard at it.

One day, as I was wrestling with painting an image of a tree I had a photograph of, my teacher came over to see what was wrong with me. "Why can't I get my tree to look like this tree?" I asked him, showing him the photograph and tearing up. It was right then that he told me a valuable secret. It's one I use to this very day.

"You're too busy looking at the details," he said, "See? You're perception of the whole tree is off as a result. Do you see how the whole tree is shaped like this in the photograph, but it's shaped slightly differently in your painting? As long as the shape of your tree is off then your details, no matter how accurate you get them, won't match the photograph. You have to look at something and see what's actually there instead of seeing what you think should be there."

I've just had a more recent lesson in this very same principle.

My Cale's newest favorite thing is the sound of shattering glass. I have been so threatened by this that it has seriously colored my perception of the situation. When you see a kid that shatters glass things, what do you think of? I don't know about you, but I see an incredibly disobedient and out of control child. I also see a bad mother who hasn't enough control to keep her child safe. The problem is that this mother is me.

Cale has always liked the sound of things crashing into the floor. He throws his plate of food on the floor with EVERY meal, not because he's not hungry, but because he cannot resist the sound it makes as it hits the floor. As a result he goes hungry a lot because at my house, once your plate of food hits the floor, you are done whether you're autistic or not. I don't care.

Lately it's become more of an obsession than usual. It's become more intense. It's no longer enough to throw his dinner on the floor. He actually wants to hear glass shattering. He waits until I'm busy with one of the other kids and then he quickly pushes a chair over to the counter top, climbs up onto it, grabs a glass or a dish, holds it up as high as he can and drops it onto the kitchen floor. If there isn't anything breakable on the counter top then he gets into the cupboard and gets out a plate or a glass.

He absolutely squeals in delight as it shatters against the floor and sends shards flying in every direction. Yes I know. He could fall. He loves to fall. In fact he jumps, arms flying into the air, off the counter tops. So far I've always been there to catch him. But, if I'm not one of these times then he could fall onto the floor. Into GLASS. He's broken almost all of my dishes.

We also have a balcony (loft, or whatever you want to call it) on our second floor that opens onto our living room. It's tall (we have tall ceilings) and is probably at least a one story drop (inside the house). We bought the house BEFORE we knew about Cale. He loves to hang things over the railing and drop them off the balcony into the living. Not stuffed animals. No. LAMPS. If someone ever walked in at the perfect moment...oh man.

I do have a time out chair that Cales hates that he's put into every time he does these things, but it doesn't seem to teach him to stop. I've always gotten this vague feeling that he genuinely cannot resist.

Any time I hear the distinct sound of a scooting chair, I run to the kitchen as fast as I can and catch him jumping off the counter. But there's not much I can do to predict the balcony thing. I've removed all the lamps but he's just found other heavy things to throw over. And the baby gate doesn't keep him from going upstairs anymore. He can just push through it (he is almost four years old). So I've told the other kids to just be very careful about walking under the balcony in the living room.

For Alden's birthday party on Sunday we rented a bouncer and someone landed right on top of Cale's head with all of their weight. He cried for a minute and then stopped, but kept grabbing at his head. I've always had a bit of a sense that he doesn't feel pain as intensely as he should, and that he can't tell me if or how bad he's hurt. So it's up to me to guess. Shane looked for an open Urgent-Care, but it was Sunday night and none were open. I seriously considered taking him to the emergency room.

I could just imagine CPS or an investigating police officer saying, "Someone landed on his head and he doesn't communicate or feel pain correctly? Why WOULDN'T you have that checked out?" Then I would try to explain what it's like to chase an autistic child around a gun shot filled emergency room for four hours late on a Sunday night. I can hear myself now, "Believe me officer, you'd risk some one's life to avoid that experience as well." I'd then be arrested and put away for life. Hmm. Oh never mind:)

I watched him for two hours for all the signs of concussion. I fed him a giant bowl of cereal and chocolate almond milk and he didn't puke. I also watched his pupils which seemed normal (but again with autism you never know if the body is reacting the way it should). I had nightmares all night about Cale not waking up the next morning. I cried and prayed, "Oh God, I can't do without my baby. Please, please don't let him be hurt."

The next morning I had an appointment with the developmental pediatrician. I told him about the incident and asked him to check Cale's head. As he ran his fingers over Cale's skull, he reminded me of the fact that Cale doesn't communicate and will not feel pain correctly. "Oh yes," he said, "he's got a heck of a bump back here but he's going to be fine." I asked him if I should've taken him to the emergency room the night before and he said, "Oh NO...it would be HORRIBLE to chase an autistic kid around an emergency room for four hours late on a Sunday night!"

The occupational therapist came last Friday to do an evaluation on Cale. He explained to me the difference between sensory SEEKING behaviors and sensory AVOIDING behaviors. And for some reason it wasn't until right then that it all became so clear.

"Oh my God," I thought as the therapist talked to me. Once again, it's a matter of seeing what's really going on instead of what I think is going on. Cale isn't trying to drive me insane. He's trying to get his needs met.

Isabel's autism is a bit different than Cale's. Isabel is sensory AVOIDING. Her senses are heightened. She feels things too intensely. She can't stand tags in her clothes. She feels movement too intensely and doesn't like to be twirled or do anything that might require balance. She also can't handle a lot of auditory stimulation for long periods of time. She can only stand a grocery store or a noisy daycare room for about an hour before she starts melting down. She also tastes and smells food too intensely which is why she won't eat much and is malnourished. She now sees a feeding therapist for this.

Isabel needs to avoid intense sensory experiences. She requires a lot of soothing sounds and quiet time. She loves to do quiet things like snuggling, reading stories, making art, and doing puzzles. She has recently discovered my piano which she plays quietly. Cale's screaming and chaotic behavior sends her over the edge. She plugs her ears and cries when he screams, which he does all the time.

Cale is sensory SEEKING which means he doesn't feel anything intensely enough. Therefore he seeks out intense sensory experiences. He screams just to hear himself scream.

The O.T. explained to me that Cale actually, physically NEEDS intense sensory experiences and will seek those out in any way he can. He told me he could give me some things to do with Cale for auditory stimulation. Then maybe he won't have to break my dishes and drop things over the balcony.

This explains why my baby doesn't respond to his name or any other words. He doesn't respond to most voices at all unless I yell at him. He actually loves it when I yell at him and will keep doing whatever it is I yelled at him about to get me to keep yelling. He actually WANTS the auditory experience. It's the exact opposite of how my other kids react to my yelling at them.

This also explains why he seeks out intense movement like falling, spinning, jumping, etc., and is why he loves to jump, with all of his might, off the counter top.

It also explains why he lays down and starts humping the floor when he's stressed. He did this right in front of an ABA therapist at SARRC one day and she explained to me that this is called "stimming" which is short for "self-stimulatory behavior."

"Yeah," I said giggling, "I've heard other technical terms for that one." I got embarrassed for Cale and picked him right up. He screamed, cried, hit me, and got so mad!!

"Geez," I said, "I didn't think interrupting him would be THAT big of a deal!"

Shane looked at me and said, "Sweetie, he's a boy. And he wasn't done yet." All three of us (including the therapist) laughed until we cried!

Thank God for the O.T. I really started to think Cale was just out to make me crazy. Maybe now that I can see what's really going on I'll be able to stop trying to punish him and try to teach him more appropriate ways of getting sensory input.

By the way, I did become an art teacher myself. I don't teach anymore. Now, I just take care of autistic kids. And I never did get to teach in that classroom (in fact my old teacher is still teaching in that same classroom), but during the year I taught I did get the opportunity to participate with him and a variety of other art teachers in putting together a district wide art curriculum. That was more than I ever could have asked for.

The other art teachers gave him a hard time for not remembering me. "How could you not remember a name like Womeldorf?" they laughed at him. I wish I'd told them all that I'd become a teacher because of him.

One of the evenings that we met to go over the new curriculum, we all met in his classroom. It was exactly the same. The same art work that intimidated me as a kid was still there adorning the classroom walls. It looked different to me though. Instead of an impressive sense of three-dimensional skill, I saw the shotty, rushed art work of stoned high school students. "Whoa," I thought to myself as I let what was really there sink in.

I really hope I can look back on the childhood of my children in the same way. Not so intimidated by the difficulty of it all, but as a seasoned autism mom with some experience to give away. I suppose I will if I can just keep remembering the secret of the teacher with the best classroom in the world.