Brain Performance, Kindness and Autism

By Steven on November 9, 2009

My family spent time this weekend at a friend’s non-profit farm in Los Altos, Animal Assisted Happiness.  Another family brought their autistic son to spend time with the animals and our son acted as a helper during the visit.  The experience was impactful from several perspectives:

  • My friend Vicki started a non-profit, opened her home, volunteered her family’s time and her animals to help others
  • The animals did not care about the differences between the people petting and feeding them … young or old, experienced or inexperienced in handling animals, autistic or non-autistic
  • The mom of the boy was comfortable letting our son interact with her family on a first visit

My son wanted to know more about the boy after the visit … could my son get autism?  why does it happen?  what can be done to help/can it be “cured“?  how does he communicate? what does he feel?  It showed the depth of understanding that can be brought out by simply interacting with others, being kind and giving your time.

And I was also struck again by the importance of our brain’s ability to process information and how challenging life can be when the signals going in and coming out are not responding in an expected way.

Possibly Related posts:

  1. The Arts and The Brain
  2. How Do You Teach A 6-Year-Old with Autism to Ride a Bike?
  3. Brain Plasticity Cuts Both Ways: How Does Technology Affect The Brains of Children?
  4. Oxytocin and Autism

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Posted: Brain plasticity, Neuroscience

4 Responses to “Brain Performance, Kindness and Autism”

  1. Marghi Says:
    November 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am

    I had a similar experience this weekend, when my daughter came with me to a fundraiser for the Community Alliance for Special Education (www.caseadvocacy.org, if you’re interested). Those are hard questions to answer for a young child, but I think that making our kids feel comfortable with and respectful of people with all kinds of differences is a great thing.

  2. Allison Says:
    November 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    I very much agree that it is important to show our children how to be comfortable with and respectful of people with all kinds of differences. I am the wife of Steven who started this post. This morning on our way to school I told our son that I was happy that he had been able to be a helper to the boy who had autism, and I pointed out that it can be hard to interact with a child who doesn’t offer or respond to typical social cues. I explained that the more practice this child has with interacting, the better he’ll get at it. Just like the more practice our son has with interacting with kids who have differences, the easier that will be even easier too.

    I responded to his questions about autism by saying that one doesn’t develop autism later in life, and that we don’t have a “cure” yet, although there are many therapies which can help children with autism learn how to respond to (and offer) social cues as well as gain comfort with new environments.

    Our son wondered why the boy had made certain repetitive sounds and why he had been so interested in holding items. I explained that when people are uncomfortable, routines can be comforting. The sounds could be his way of communicating happiness or fear, or could be something he does in order to make his environment “the same”. I said that holding the items and looking at them intently allow him to focus, and that focusing can help take his attention away from all of the other stimuli (people, animals, sounds, smells, etc.) which can be overwhelming. My son and I stopped and listened to and watched everything that was happening around us, and we noticed quite a bit which didn’t disturb us, but could disturb someone who is senstive to stimuli.

    All of those questions are valid and I tried to be very respectful of our son’s questions, as comfort with our children’s questions will, I hope, give them a comfort-level with not only discussing differences, but in interacting with those who have differences.

  3. Autism in Children Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 5:25 am

    Good read, thanks. Always looking out for weird and wonderful stuff to read :)

  4. Best Autism Treatment Remedy Says:
    November 22nd, 2009 at 2:51 am

    Great stuff. Nice to read some well written posts. A long way between them.

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