"Autism: Thief Of Our Children"

The children I work with all have special needs, and they are all very precious to me. The many facets of their personalities make this true for a variety of reasons. Although the students in the classroom are all within the same I.Q. range, their disabilities vary.

The most fascinating of the disabilities for me is that of the autism spectrum disorder. It is a challenge to form a two-way bond with these students because of the emotional disconnect that comes with being autistic.

I want the students who have this disorder to understand that I care about them. I want them to experience the feel of that emotion. I want them to feel more connected with the world and not so isolated. It causes me great sadness to think of anyone going through life without experiencing love and that is exactly what some of them have to do.

I know that I am not going to accomplish this with all of them, but I am going to try as hard as I can. I am pretty stubborn when I feel it's worth it, and I can't think of a better cause.

I have worked with autistic students that have fallen anywhere from the lowest functioning end of the spectrum to the highest functioning end of the spectrum.

One of the savant students that I worked with in the past was so amazing. He would hold your face between his hands when he first met you and say "what's your first name?" then he would inquire about the rest of your name then ask "where are you from?" This question would be followed by him asking for your date of birth.

He could calculate how old you were in days and tell you what day of the week you were born on in a fraction of a second. I know this because once after he had transferred to another area high school, I walked into a room at a county event, and he shouted out for all to hear "Mrs. Arlene Lynn Foster, from Atlanta, Georgia, 43 years old in 39 days!".

In case I forgot to mention it disabilities don't come with filters on what should and should not be said aloud.

I now work very closely with a couple of female students that are autistic. My co-workers call one of them my shadow. Her desk is located right beside mine and she wouldn't have it any other way. To tell you the truth neither would I.

She is very sweet most of the time and has a beautiful smile. Once in a while however, she will have a bad day, and she becomes aggressive. She has thrown things at me, turned her desk over, cursed, slapped me and kicked me, and I have gone home with bruises the size of softballs.

Some of these episodes have occurred in the community in front of a large number of people. The episodes are not necessarily prompted by something that is happening right at the moment . Although, the cause could be something happening at the time the aggressive behavior occurs, it could very well be due to something that has happened days or even weeks before.

My shadow for instance, believes, with a conviction that I have been unable to overturn, that I make the rain. As luck would have it ...she hates the rain...rain causes an immediate bad day. I have tried to convince her that God or whatever name she might recognize as her higher power makes the rain, but in her mind I'm the rainmaker and so the ramifications are mine.

I am sure that some people would say that I am crazy for doing what I do. I on the other hand, don't believe that I am. I care a great deal about these students and regardless of how their disability affects their behavior, as long as I can say that any negative behavior they exhibit is a manifestation of their disability then I'm okay with it.

I know that it is much more frustrating for them than I could even begin to imagine. As I said earlier the one thing that is really painful for me and makes my heart ache for the students with an autistic disability is the lack of emotional connection with other people that some of them have.

I have worked with one particular female for about 4 years now and just this year she began to say I love you in response to my saying it to her first.

Finally, about a month ago, she said it to me without any prompting. I have to tell you that I cried. It meant more to me than you could begin to imagine. This same student also stares at me all day long. Needless to say my ability to recognize the fact that I am being stared at is virtually non-existent due to this behavior of hers.

One day last week, I ask her why she was staring at me, and she said "because I want to". I responded with the question "why do you want to?" She said "because I love you" with this huge grin on her face. I melted. It was a wonderful moment for me.

I have always believed that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is correlated with Autism and I'm not sure what the most recent research shows about that. I am also convinced that immunizations play a part in its cause.

In the 1980s a child received 10 immunizations before the age of 6, now they receive 36 before they are that age.

In the 1970s and 1980s 1 in every 2000 children was diagnosed with autism. The Centers For Disease Control and prevention said in their February prevalence report that now 1 in every 150 children are diagnosed with autism. Studies have also shown that a male child is 4 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than a female child so this statistic becomes 1 in 94 for male children.

I have a personal belief that the children could also possibly be genetically predisposed and that potentially something in the immunizations triggers the autism.

A story was released by the Huffington Post that said three weeks after a Vaccine Court ruled against three families that claimed that vaccines caused autism in their children, Special Master Abell of the Vaccine Court awarded $810,000, and medical compensation to parents of a young boy named Bailey Banks.

This came after Special Master Abell ruled that the petitioners had proven that an inflammation illness called acute disseminated encephalomyetis (ADEM) was the result of his MMR vacine which triggered his autism.

I hope that this is a step forward in making scientists take a look at doing more research on the cumulative effects of vaccines, and not only the effects of each individual vaccine if it were to be given alone.

Although I know for many, discovering the cause for autism is not a priority at this time, It desperately needs to be. We need to be concerned about this as a society. No one is safe from this becoming a personal issue. With the statistics showing autism on the rise at such a rapid rate, it is no longer only the problem of the people who have been diagnosed and their families....

This is most definitely everyone's problem.....