{"id":2997,"date":"2012-08-13T21:43:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T01:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/?p=2997"},"modified":"2012-08-13T21:43:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T01:43:29","slug":"my-latest-wash-post-oped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/my-latest-wash-post-oped\/","title":{"rendered":"My latest Wash Post oped"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinions<\/h3>\n
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My autistic son\u2019s step into the wider world \u2014 through Facebook<\/h1>\n
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By Susan Senator, Published: August\u00a010<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Susan Senator<\/a>, a writer in Massachusetts, is the author of \u201cThe Autism Mom\u2019s Survival Guide\u201d and \u201cMaking Peace With Autism.\u201d She blogs at susansenator.com\/blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When my autistic son, Nat, was about 8, we learned that he loved looking at family photos on my husband\u2019s computer. This discovery rocked my family\u2019s world. Before then, we did not know that Nat enjoyed our faces. He had never seemed that comfortable looking at or talking to us. Perhaps he liked the unchangeable nature of pictures, their static predictability. Or maybe the stillness of photos gave him the space to process his thoughts.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo there,\u201d Nat would say, pointing at an image from my mother\u2019s house during Passover. Once we understood that the house, our family and the holidays were things Nat liked, my son Max started taking pictures of them and we\u2019d put them on the laptop for Nat. Laptop photos gave Max something in common with his older brother, perhaps for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

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But as with all people, interests fade. The laptop eventually lost its allure for Nat, at the same time his frustration with communicating grew. His brothers were often targets of his anger, straining our family relationships. During some phases of his teenage years, things were so volatile I feared that Nat would hurt us \u2014 or that we would hurt him. I didn\u2019t know how to talk to my son and, far worse, I didn\u2019t know how to listen to him. Sometimes it felt like life had frozen, that I was merely maintaining Nat rather than helping him grow.<\/p>\n

Sometime in the past year, Nat had a sort of mental growth spurt. This is not atypical with autism. In Nat\u2019s case, he suddenly seemed to labor less over answering questions and he became very interested in other people. He was more alert, if more on edge; it was as if he had acquired a new sharpness.<\/p>\n

Nat still has great difficulty finding words to communicate, but it seemed like he wanted to try. I realized that if I remembered to wait, to be quiet for a long time, he could often formulate an answer \u2014 terse yet perfect, crystalline.<\/p>\n

Many fellow autism moms began urging me to get Nat an iPad, saying he could communicate through it. I was reluctant because I thought that Nat just could not link the concept of computer activity with speaking. He had never played video games, and he showed little interest in using the computer to learn. He did type the occasional e-mail, with heavy support from his teachers, but he did not seem to enjoy it.<\/p>\n

One recent afternoon we weren\u2019t doing much; I was online, checking e-mail and Facebook. For no particular reason, I called Nat over to look at my Facebook page. He must have been bored, for he came right away. He seemed fascinated with the little thumbnail images of all the people I know \u2014 many of whom he knows as well. An idea began to bloom.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Nat,\u201d I said, \u201cyou want to type on my Facebook page here?\u201d To my surprise, he answered yes. I had no idea what to expect and sat back while Nat\u2019s finger hovered over the keyboard, his thoughts slowly coalescing into words. He\u2019d finally shout one out and I\u2019d say, \u201cOkay, type that!\u201d Then he\u2019d sound it out, using the invented spelling of kindergartners \u2014 but this was anything but babyish.<\/p>\n

Seeing Nat\u2019s words on the screen felt miraculous. One of the first things he typed was \u2014 not surprisingly \u2014 \u201clook at pikerts\u201d (look at pictures). I posted a note on my Facebook wall that Nat was typing. Moments later, responses began pouring in. It seemed like all my Facebook friends wanted to talk to Nat. I asked Nat if he wanted to say something back. He typed some responses, \u201chi\u201d and \u201chow you.\u201d I wanted to shout, jump and kiss him all at once but I stopped myself. I had waited many years for communication like this, but my son is also a 22-year-old man. I encouraged him, but quietly, the way he needs it to be.<\/p>\n

Nat and I soon created his own Facebook account \u2014 with him doing most of the typing. In sending out friend requests, I invited his two brothers, a tricky venture because they did not want to friend me or their father. But Max accepted Nat right away, without a word. And he has been \u201cliking\u201d posts on Nat\u2019s page.<\/p>\n

Nat\u2019s is just one Facebook page out of nearly a billion. But in our family, glaciers are melting and mountains moving. My younger son asked me the other day why I had put Nat on Facebook. I thought for a moment, then told him the truth: \u201cI don\u2019t know. It just seems like he\u2019s ready to join the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I\u2019ll friend him,\u201d he said. Four little words, but sometimes that\u2019s all you need.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinions My autistic son\u2019s step into the wider world \u2014 through Facebook By Susan Senator, Published: August\u00a010 Susan Senator, a writer in Massachusetts, is the author of \u201cThe Autism Mom\u2019s Survival Guide\u201d and \u201cMaking Peace With Autism.\u201d She blogs at susansenator.com\/blog. When my autistic son, Nat, was about 8, we learned that he loved looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-Ml","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2998,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions\/2998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}