Sometimes it’s obvious but often times it’s not. If you ask your son why he didn’t empty the dishwasher and he says, “No, I don’t want to,” you know he’s being disobedient. But what if he didn’t call the owner of a restaurant who posted a job for a dishwasher (something you discussed earlier), a job he could easily do? Or, what if he (again) forgot to do the trimming and put the lawnmower back in the shed after meticulously cutting the grass?
You ask yourself time and again, “Am I dealing with a behavior problem, or is this a disability problem?” Parents of children with autism or other cognitive disabilities face this question all the time. The brain of a person with autism is so different than yours. It’s a big challenge. You say, “If only I could get inside his mind and experience how he thinks or doesn’t think.” With technology moving as fast as it is today, getting inside someone’s brain could be around the corner.
However, in the real world of parenting, understanding the difference between the behavior issue and the cognitive disability issue takes time and a huge amount of patience. Most of us are not born with the ocean of patience required to raise a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. And it doesn’t matter if it’s low-functioning or high-functioning—each has its own unique challenges to overcome.
I found out late in the game about something called “executive function.” It seems to me that the lack of executive function in the person with autism/Asperger’s Syndrome has wide-ranging ramifications. While most of us neurotypicals have an inner drive that helps us move forward and accomplish our goals, this seems to not be the case with an autistic brain.
Most commonly, the lack of executive function means a person struggles with going from point A to point B to point C and so forth. They need to have lists or a whiteboard to keep track of their daily tasks. However, maybe this means the person also struggles with having the inner drive to excel at something or even knowing what he or she should do in life.
We need professionals—including doctors and specialists—to help us figure out this puzzle. We need medical professionals who will take the time to understand their patients and come up with sensible and creative ways to help them. Simple visual cues like a “to-do list” kept in a pants pocket will keep the worker on tasks and get through his shift.
A neurologist encouraged our son to journal when he’s working or at the end of the day, so he knows what things upset him and what things he likes during the day. Now doing something like that can help a lot of us in knowing what kind of work is best suited for us.
