I guess I should start by saying that I was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder in my early teens. It's not terribly obvious to people who don't know what to look for in my behavior or speech, most people don't even notice. What it really boils down to, to me, is this: my brain doesn't work along the same lines and processes as the typical human brain, but I can make it work well enough to function well in a world of neurotypical people.
Today's story is meant to illustrate the importance of understanding the difference in brain function between a neurotypical and someone with autism/Asperger's, and on a larger scale, the connections that can be made between people of similar thought patterns. It's actually something that happened a while ago, it just came up in conversation recently.
I have a friend who works/worked (honestly not sure if this is still ongoing) with mentally disabled kids. The people at the place he worked had been having trouble making any sort of connection with one little boy in particular; he wouldn't talk to anyone. So, this friend brought it up to me one day, and I got curious about him and started asking about him: his habits, what he liked and didn't like, etc. He mentioned a few things, and one of them was that the kid loved to touch things. Not just touch them, but to feel them, to take in their texture. Almost immediately I had a thought, so I told it to him:
Bring him a piano.
A few days later I got a message back saying that it had worked, that the kid loved the piano. I'm not sure if he was actually learning how to play, but that's irrelevant both to him and to me. I knew, somehow, from a personal understanding the way the autistic brain works, that he would like it. Not even necessarily learning music, but the piano itself: the way it sounds, feels, the way the keys work, the way you can combine different keys to make new sounds, all of it.
Pause for a second and understand the magnitude of what I just said. I've never met this kid. I live fifty miles from him. And in some senses, I know him better than the people who spend almost every day with him.
I doubt I could do that with just any autistic kid. When my friend described him, I almost immediately thought of myself. All the little things about him were close to, if not just like the little quirks I have and had when I was younger. I knew what he'd like because I was dealing with me. I knew, from personal experience, how his brain worked, on a level that few other people can even approach.
I think it should be a requirement, maybe to graduate high school or college, or to live in any given community, or whatever, to help out in teaching a kindergarten class. Maybe once a month, maybe just once. Every class has problem students, the kind that the average teacher just can't connect with, no matter how hard they try. But there is probably someone, somewhere, that thinks along close enough lines to that kid to make a connection between what would help them and what would help the kid. This would just speed up figuring that out, and help establish an effective learning and teaching process, and more importantly, a connection between the kid and the rest of the world, a link bridging the gap between them and everyone else.
Because no one wants to feel alone.
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