A Personal View On Autism
And Other Gifts
This is a very sensitive topic for us at NewPort Arizona. It is a personal View. As the creator of this web site we want to communicate with people who are seriously seeking to find and or share their experience with Autism and other disabilities.
I am Mark S. Belnap and my autistic son has become the greatest joy in my life. He has been diagnosed just prior to turning two. He still is on the "spectrum".
He is highly functional for the societal view points. He can speak, He can dress himself, he can brush his teeth, he can socialize, he can express concern and care for others.
Does he do these things well?
The answer can be different on any given day. It is a personal view. But it is sometimes a struggle for him to transition from self guided play or work to a different needed type of activity. Getting ready for school within a reasonable amount of time. He is very much aware of the change in feel in his clothing. He chooses not to wear socks.
His relationships with people are very endearing. Trying to keep them is sometimes hard. Children sense that other children are different so names are called referring neagatively to our son.
He fully understands what a bully is and has no problem talking and taking the matter before the teachers or aids or principals. Kindergarten is very adventurous for him.
He has a dinosaur caw and bellow which we think is cute now. We hope it goes by the wayside by the time he is seven or eight.
It is amazing to us that autism is now considered an issue with children by society starting with severely unaware children to kids with sensory integration disorder, Aspergers Syndrome, ADHD, and ADD. Ten and fifteen years ago the only diagnosis of autism was severe speach delays or no speach, lack of developmental skills and no interaction with others.
One must ask the question, How is it possible that no one connected the dots of this spectrum until this new milleneum?
Is it real or have we as a society created it. Are we trying to line it up into its proper place?
If we created it are we serving our own need to deal with disability or are we actually treating the diagnosed individual to help him improve.
It is staggering to think that 1 in 150 children in the United States has a form of autism. It must be a personal view. It is hard to believe that this is spreading around the world.
Has it always been this way or are we just more cognitive and conscious about it now?
Denial is a wonderful thing. I was fine about my boy being on the spectrum because I felt that everybody grows out of their issues in development over time.
I have friends who had a son that could not say a word until about 4 years old. It was brought to the attention of the family doctor. If the child wanted water he just stood by the water faucet until someone came and gave him water.
The doctor said to not give him water until he would say the word water. This boy is now a successful attorney in Chicago.
Intervention to a youth that has developmentally been challenged is always a good thing. Does it mean he or she is not normal? It is a personal view. There is not enough concrete data to support any causes. Some say there are cures.
It seems that we all must individually take action by what we feel in our gut that there is a right thing to do for any given disability.
My Story?
Well, I was so much in denial that I would have needed
all my nerve endings to have been magnified a 100 times before I would succumb to the diagnosis of Autism.
The medical world warned us when my son was just about a year old that he needed to see a neurological specialist. We shrugged it off as a nurse being insensitive and not being in sync with the Medical Doctor.
Several months later we are re approached with he words "sensory
integration disorder. Our son would run into a wall and then run into a person or furniture over and over again as entertainment and fun. He would catch on to words but would focus on phrases and repeat them over and over. Kitty, Zebie, Rhino and finally his favorite phrase that was said daily for every circumstance... Rhino bite you. There is more to come on this personal view.
A personal view takes you back home...
