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From Their Point of View

Getting Inside the Head of a Child with Autism

By Jenn Director Knudsen

Notbohm says she receives tons of Internet mail about her work, largely from parents so relieved to read helpful information about children with autism, practically in their own voice. One reader writes of Notbohm's work, "Loved the article. My daughter who is [diagnosed] with autism will totally agree with it."

Writes another: "I am sitting here with tears running down my face. ... How I wish I had read something like this five years ago. ... I am passing it to my son's teachers and to my mother-in-law who continues to ask when he will outgrow 'it' and be 'normal.'"

The author herself is realistic: She always has measured her youngest son's success incrementally, when necessary, moment by moment. Just as one who sets out to lose 20 pounds overnight will not do so, neither will a parent or educator get to the root of a child with autism's behavior issues in an instant.

"A child with autism is not bad or wrong or unknowable," Notbohm says. "It's another way to be. The child is knowable, and like any other child, can be wonderful. Just go one step at a time."

Hayes adds that she's been witness to child after child with autism once locked in a "horrid shell" bereft of communication skills who eventually breaks out of it. "As a parent, you just never give up," she says. "No matter what, you keep on keeping on, and it is frustrating. These kids fascinate and make you crazy, but there is a key, one little key."