We had such an enjoyable day yesterday! :) Our mall has this new play area in the food court so I thought Stephen, Hunter and I would head on over so they could play. What I loved most about being there was that my son fit right in and not a single person there noticed the little ASD quirks he did :) The trained eye would clearly have seen the flapping and jumping he did when he had to stand in line waiting to go into the tree house slide or the hesitiation at times when he struggled with motor planning or the repetative behavior in having to use the antibacterial gel on his hands every 10 minutes or how when he came to talk to me he turned his eyes in a slightly different direction so as not to make direct eye contact since the multitasking of standing close to me, looking directly at me and making perfect eye contact with nice communication was a bit to hard for him. It was a wonderful feeling watching my son play with the other children. It definately was at times more parallel play but it was play none the less :) Seeing my son successfully engage was wonderful! It is also a reminder though of the importance of education and understanding of ASD. Hunter is one of many that are high functioning that will be integrated into the "typical" society and school system and when he has his moments in which he struggles it is important that he be understood and helped. Not judged or misunderstood as just having behavior issues.
I had the trained eye yesterday since he is my son and I've done my best to understand him but that isn't enough. We need all of society to have a bit of a trained eye. They may not know what it is that they are seeing if they are not directly effected by autism but they DO need to know that many Hunters will play and walk among them and to never assume or judge what they see. To never judge a book by its cover, there is often more to the story :)
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