Today I want to tell you the story about an amazing woman I met a few years ago. She is autistic, has no social skills but she is very articulate.
For most parents she is the poster child of academic success, she went to Harvard to get a PhD. She came to the USA from China when she was 8 years old. In China, kids were expected to be seen and not heard, so the fact she was nonverbal went completely unnoticed.
On arriving in the USA, she entered an ESL program to learn English. It was only then that she made the connection between word and speech and began talking. As fate would have it, her school used a nonverbal visual test.
When we lived in New York City, we had friends from Bangladesh who invited us over for dinner. When we arrived at their apartment, we expected to be seated at a table and be served food. They both had PhDs from US universities and worked on Wall Street. It took us by surprise when we were seated on the floor in order to eat. We were given no silverware and were expected to eat with our hands. This was very unusual for us. I politely asked for a fork and knife, to which they smiled and obliged. To me, sitting on the floor eating with my hands is very unusual. However, to them, I was the peculiar one who requested a fork in order to eat. Neither one of our ways is the “right” way to eat. We simply learned different customs when we grew up, and to both of us, our unusual ways are “normal.”
Studies have show that autistic children benefit from pressure on their bodies especially when they are overstimulated or anxious. Most autistic kids utilize some form of compression. The easiest and cheapest way to accomplish this is with the use of weighted vests.
By Dalia Shkedy—Ethan’s Mom