Sections:
What is Autism
Understanding the Senses Makes Sense

What Is Autism?

Even the "experts" don't know for certain what autism really is. But they do document the symptoms and behaviors.
Each autistic child is different from other autistis children. They each have their own sensory "combination" that keep them locked out of our world.

Common behavior differences include (To be classified as autistic, a child would have at least half of these symptoms):

1. Living in their own little world
2. Not able to socialize with other children
3. Fascination with spinning objects
4. Inappropriate giggling
5. Uses gestures instead of words
6. Hates changes in environment or routine
7. Resists snuggling, body contact
8. "Hyperactive"
9. Reptitive play
10. No fear in real dangers
11. Acts deaf
12. Inappropriate or non-exsistent eye contact
13. Difficult to teach
14. Unnatural attachment to objects

They don't develop as most persons. They may be "crippled" in social skills, but brilliant in math. Some are "savants," extremely gifted persons in one area of life, but non-functioning in other areas. For instance, an autistic person might not be able to read, write, or talk, but can play the piano at the concert level. The incidence rate for autism is five to fifteen per ten thousand births.
Though ther are many causes for autism, there are no known psychological causes of autism. Or in other words, parents of autistic children aren't bad parents. It was once believed that autism was the result of "refrigerator moms." This was a cruel definition and proved false. Causes include problems at birth, fragile X syndrome, rubella during pregnancy, reaction to immunization, or a double regressive genetic model.
(Facts provided by the Autism Society of America - used with permission)

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Understanding the Senses Makes Sense

One way to approach Autism is to understand how it can affect a child’s five senses.  His behavior makes perfect sense when you grasp what his brain is doing with inputs his nerves are sending throughout his body.
Autism in one child can consist of his own combination of sensory issues.  Any or all the senses can be affected as either hypo or hyper.  What would be therapy for one child could be torture for another child. 
This unique combination of sense issues makes teaching a classroom of children with autism completely impractical and makes home schooling ideal.  You, as the teacher, can adapt therapies and instructions to fit your child’s unique pattern of needs.
One major consideration in therapy of a child with autism is a sound diagnosis of the child’s combination.  Each sense can be affected or not at all and at varying degrees.

For example:

The negative sign indicates the intensity of the “hypo” ness of the condition, while the plus sign signifies the “hyper” ness of that sense.  A dash designates a sense that is considered in the “normal” range.
Autism makes sense when you consider how these precious children act as either avoidance of pain or even the hint of pain.  All those so-called odd behaviors seem really quite logical when understood.
We have found that when we address the physical cause of the pain or the uncomfortable sensations, the “isms” disappear.  It is amazing that with what some of these children have to deal with on a minute-by-minute basis just to live in our noisy, smelling, hard world that they are so normal and loving.
To “walk in their shoes” we must look at each sense and how it can be affected.

Click on a sense in the picture below to learn more about how each sense applies to an autistic child.

There are many aspects to autism that parents have to adapt and adjust to make their child’s world habitable. But, one of the major leaps in Trent’s condition was when we learned his private, unique sensory combination and began addressing therapies and changing our lifestyle to help him. All told it has been worth it, a thousand times over. It has cost considerable amounts of money. Money that went to Trent, and not to a bigger home or nicer cars or ________. It has cost thousands of hours of time. But I’d spent thousands of hours with any child, it’s just Trent had “therapy” instead of geography. But most of all we have a deep understanding of what makes him tick and we can avoid those things that bring him pain (perfume or flourecent lighting) and embrace things that make him happy and give him a feeling of safety (Squippy (his afghan) or homemade bread).

One other aspect of this focuses on how we interact with those who are ignorant about autism. It only takes a few sentences of explanation, and most people are fascinated and instantly compassionate about Trent instead of complaining and asking why I don’t discipline him stronger. Just as I would never ask a lame child to tap dance on broken glass and punish him if he didn’t, I can’t ask Trent to sit still in a room filled with horrific smells, torturous noises, and cruel people. We have no problems finding the exit when needed. 

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