My first experiences with autism

Many years ago I looked forward to the main part of my studies: clinical psychology.
I liked the basics, but I wanted to follow the lectures of Professor van de Loo.

When he arrived at the subject of development disorders of children, I was studying about the same at the department of Educational sciences.

They showed the same movie about autistic children, and I was glued to the screen like no one else.
I even came back in the evening to see it again when it was showed to the studemts of the part time studies of education.

The children on the movie had core autism... the worst kind of autism.
Those days all these children were considered severely retarded, but something in me made me feel they weren't all as retarded as was said.
I decided to make autism the subject of my lecture in clinical psychology.

Because not many people dared to talk about this subject, and because each lecture should contain new insights, I had a larger audience than usual. And it was a critical one.
After my lecture I was bombarded by questions, and I loved it!!!
I remember one of them: "Why do children react so strong on touch?"
Because they don't experience a difference between their body and the outer world. They experience so much sensory and other information that they have no experience of skin, like we do.
They feel like someone puts his hand into his body, so to say.

Two days later I was called. There was someone I should meet. If I wanted to accompany my prof to another town to meet that person.

I saw a young man. Diagnosed with core autism. He was said to be standing all day. And often when the nurses wanted him to go to the dinnerroom, he refused and had an emotional outburst.

The room we were supposed to meet was empty. Only a pile of cushions was on the floor.
I asked for a little table and two chairs, and i put them in the room myself. Without looking at him.
Then I sat down and waited about half an hour, before he looked at me.
Just swiftly. But I knew he had seen me.
I started to talk. Told who I was. That I was trying to understand why people differ so much.
That I didn't agree with people who say that autistic people are all retarded.
That I understood he wanted to stand up as much as possible, because maybe he was feeling that chairs were uncomfortable, maybe even painful.
I sensed he was listening carefully. Although he didn't look at me for one moment.
I told him that the touch of the chair is the same feeling as the touch of the floor to your feet, but that he might feel it to be different because it's new.
"But new feelings get old feelings. Our brains start to understand that the continuous feeling belongs to us, and the pain goes away. Like the pain of his feet on the floor went away."

I also asked if he skipped meals because the nurses touched him to have him go to the dinnerroom.
He didn't give an answer, but suddenly looked at me.
"I'll tell them not to touch you anymore, but ask you to go to the dinnerroom.
I'll also ask them to give you a radio and tell you how it works."

I saw him again a week later.
The radio was playing and his hand was moving with the music.
When the song was finished he turned the radio off and walked two steps in my direction.
It was clear he wasn't retarded at all.
I told him he could get used to sitting on a chair by trying it over and over again. Sitting still would make it more easy to get used to it.

Then I took a booklet (Perry Rhodan) and started to read aloud.
I thought that if he was able to understand the content of the story, he was far more intelligent than other people thought.
When I paused after half an hour and drank some coffee, he stood looking at me.
When I looked up he moved his head from me to the booklet.
So I read more.
In fact I sat there all the time, drinking coffee and cola, and reading till the last page.

To make a long story short: I came there a few more times, and then other psychologists took it from there.
He now can read, and has read all Perry Rhodan's. LOL!
Sitting on a chair...
And he can do a lot more!!!