We Go With Him

Hyperlexia is not uncommon among children with autism; Charlie has never shown a particular interest in the letters of the alphabet (though he did have... Read more →

Heartache is something we Autismland travelers are over-familiar with as we get through our days loving our children even as we bottle up a loss... Read more →

We had planned to take the train into New York or up to Hoboken: "Yes, 'strain," Charlie had said yesterday when Jim asked him. Rain... Read more →

Growl whine squeal hiss. That was Charlie's response when Jim said to him "Hey pal, your shirt's on backwards!" Charlie had gotten up laughing, took... Read more →

At 2am, we heard howling and knocking from Charlie's room and ran in to find him twisted up in his blankets and (I think) a... Read more →

The very concept of the "waiting room" feeds into Charlie's worst anxieties. What is a waiting room but a bland space of generic chairs, coffee... Read more →

It was some years ago that Jim and I said to each other, "Charlie will be our only child"--that it would just be the three... Read more →

Charlie has been on the gluten-free casein-free diet since June of 1999, when he was 2 years old. I grew up eating white rice every... Read more →

"Luv-ee booyy!" Charlie was standing under the hot water spraying out from two shower heads in the visitors' locker room at our town's indoor pool.... Read more →

My 100-year-old grandmother, Ngin-Ngin, speaks no English and my Cantonese consists of the numbers 1-99, "he/she is," "he/she is not," "beef and rice," "more," "thank... Read more →

Charlie talks all day long, mostly requests for things that we have taught him ("I want eat white rice," "shwimp!", "piggy back Daddy," "b'ack car")... Read more →

Charlie's IEP meeting is schedule for next week and I have been preparing by consulting our consultant and Charlie's teacher; gathering reports from his speech... Read more →

"Bee-oo-ti-fool!" Charlie called out as he ran from the dinner table and then back to put his dishes in the sink. He was very groggy... Read more →

At our town's train station, Jim handed me his monthly NJ Transit pass and I gave him my key to the black car. I went... Read more →

JPEGS and other image files eat up a lot more memory than text files do, as Jim discovered when he was transferring digitized versions of... Read more →

A "widely misunderstood extreme neurological disorder": That is how Asperger's is billed on Dr. Phil, which is airing a segment on this "high-functioning form of... Read more →

The phoenix is a mythical bird that symbolizes rebirth and immortality; it was believed by the ancient Egyptians that, at the end of its life-cycle,... Read more →

The autistic author and animal science professor Temple Grandin has described herself as an anthropologist from Mars, to explain how her being "differently abled has... Read more →

Charlie being her only grandchild, my mom buys 90% of Charlie's clothes (though since he has grown a lot taller this year, more than a... Read more →

Disorder, disability; has autism, is autistic; on the spectrum; biological, biomedical; neurological, developmental; high or low or classic. (Yes, we were once told that Charlie... Read more →