In the past few years, I’ve had a few people tell me that they “can’t tell” that our oldest is autistic. I know they mean it as a compliment, and it definitely is, because our oldest has worked so hard.
I find it hard to explain though, how much learning is involved for autistic kids because social norms do not come easily to them. Then, as it often happens, I run across a quote from Temple Grandin.
Temple is a leading speaker and writer in the area of autism. I would argue that Temple has paved the way for much of the research done and how we have come to understand autism.
Temple said, “The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic, because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave. It’s like being in a play; I’m always in a play.”
She uses this analogy to describe her experience of understanding social interactions, which did not come naturally to her, as she has noted in her work on autism advocacy.
And while I’m glad my child has found their way to navigate society and do many of the things they want to do, I love who they are and how they are and much of that is because of their autism. So just a reminder to all of us that while we often don’t want things to define us, they sometimes do, and often make us better and unique.
