From time to time, his parents also worried about his hearing and wondered if he were deaf, particularly as he often showed no response when they called his name.
At other times, however, his hearing seemed to be very acute, he would turn his head to the slightest sound of a plane or a fire engine in the distance. In the weeks following his birthday they became increasingly concerned, despite reassurances from health professionals.
He was not using any words to express him self, and he showed no interest in playing with other children. For example, he did not wave bye bye or show any real joy when they tried to play peek-a-boo. His mother agonized about her relationship with john, because he always wriggled away from her cuddles, and only seemed to like rough and tumble play with his father. She worried that she had done something wrong as a mother, and felt depressed, rejected and guilty.
When he was three and a half years old the family Gp referred john to a specialist. The specialist, a child psychiatrist, told the parents that john had autism, but added that his psychological abilities in spatial tasks (such as jigsaws) suggested that his intellectual abilities were normal in these areas. The specialist thought it was too early to give an accurate picture of the way he would progress, but said there were some indications to suggest he would do better than most children with autism. John was sent to a special playgroup, and received speech therapy. A psychologist visited the family at home and helped the parents plan ways of encouraging the development of communication and reducing the frequency of his temper tantrums.
In his fourth year, john suddenly began to speck in complete sentences. His parents were greatly relived, and for a time actually believed he had finally grown out of the problems. However, his speech was quite unusual. For example, he often repeated back word for word whatever his parents said, so if they asked him ‘ do you want a drink?’ he would say ‘ you want a drink’ in reply. At other times john made rather supervising remarks. For instance, he would say ‘ you really tickle me’ in a tone of voice similar to that of a family friend who had used the same expression a day ago. However, his use of this phrase, and most of his speech, was usually inappropriate to the setting, and it lacked any clear meaning.
The years from four to six were very difficult for the family. Despite speech therapy and special hep at school, john only made slow progress. He developed a fascination with vacuum cleaners and lampposts and started to draw them over and over again. He became exceptionally excited whenever his mother took the vacuum out, jumping up and down and vigorously waving his arms and flicking his fingers near to his eyes (this is also known as flapping.
He also became preoccupied by lights, rushing around the house switching them off and on. Even family outings became ion ordeal, John threw wild tantrums unless the family took exactly the same route and let him count the lampposts. He never seemed to tire of doing the same thing over and over again.
His behaviour was also unusual in other ways in that he never really seemed to look at any one directly. Rather, he would look at them only fleetingly or not at all. Despite this John seemed to notice everything in minute detail. He could ride his bike along the most crowed pavements without knocking anyone over, and he spotted car number plates with a figure four in them long before anyone else had noticed. He would also do thing s that his parents would find embarrassing, like grabbing and eating sandwiches from strangers plates in restaurants.
When John started school, he found it difficult to learn to read and write, although in other areas of work he was very quick, for example, he was very good with his number work, and took a great delight in learning multiplication tables. He was also still quick at jigsaws, and could mange even difficult puzzles with ease, at six years old he did a 200-piece jigsaw on his own, and a100- piece one upside-down!
Socially however he was unable to make any friends what so ever. He would attempt to join a game that he liked, but his approaches were so odd that other childr3en tended to ignore him. Most of the time, John was to be found on his own, busying him self with one of his special interests, more absorbed in counting lampposts than playing with then other children.
From the age of seven, John was sent to a special school for children with autism. At about this age his parents also noticed he seemed more interested in their company. He would show his mother that he hurt him self when he feel down, and he even seemed to derive some comfort and pleasure from cuddles. Also he began to wait for his father to come home from work, and even started to look out for him. However his parents where never sure whether John truly enjoyed seeing his father return, or whether he was simply waiting to see if his father came home at exactly six o’clock.
Fortunately, while at school he development more and more. He is now nineteen years old and no longer simply repeats things that he has been told, but is able to make appropriate responses and hold a simple conversation. He is able to read simple books, although he has difficulty in grasping the story line, although he has little interest in speaking or reading. Instead he prefers to pursue his current interest in collecting bottle tops and listing to music. He watches programmes on pop music, and seems to derive enormous pleasure from writing out or reciting a list of all the current hit records and their order in the charts. He has learnt this entire list by heart, and can tell you what the top twenty records where on any particular date.
Although he has mastered simple social pleasantries, he still finds social gatherings very difficult, and always ends up on the periphery of any group. He has not established any close friendships, despite his desire to do so. Sadly this troubles him, recently he asked his parents how he could make friends and they find this hard to explain as to them it just come naturally.
Currently John has a place in sheltered employment, fitting components into radios, he is considered to be a reliable and careful worker but his employers feel unable to give him any more responsibly because he is unable to master social skills required for dealing with colleagues and costumers. He has some awareness of these problems and talks about how difficult he finds it understanding people, ‘ I never know what to do next’ he says. Despite this he had expectations of the future the wants to marry and have a family, but seems to have no firm grasp of what this might entail.
(S, Baron, 1995)
John Shows the characteristic problems of autism he failed to develop normal social relationships and communication in the first three years of life, he showed unusual interests and repetitive behaviours.
John is typically of one group of children with autism he is outgoing socially, he can approach children but his attempts are repetitive and stilled.
Johns communication problems are rather subtle and consists of speaking in a one sided repetitive way.
John shows classic ritualistic behaviour, doing the same activity over and over again in an identical fashion, he will insist on taking exactly the same route to school very day.
John likes nothing more than counting lampposts, he will spend hours a day immersed in nothing else.
This will cause problems as a child he would scream if apiece was missing from a jigsaw now he admits he finds change difficult to deal with.
