Zoe illusionofcompetence.blogspot.com I used to go everywhere with a rubber bouncy ball in each hand. The weight and pressure of these in my palm, and the position of my hand as I curled my fingers around them, became second nature. Probably they provided reassuring proprioceptive feedback — not that I knew or cared about this. My rubber bouncy balls comforted me. But when I stopped being a toddler and started being a child, there were so many things I had to do with my hands. I had to learn to make letters and tie knots. I couldn’t hold onto a rubber ball while doing that. And there were more and more places where it was really not “appropriate” for someone my age to carry a set of bouncy balls around. So I stopped carrying the bouncy balls. I used to flap my hands and arms. Sometimes I would jump up…
Month: April 2011
Emily Willingham daisymayfattypants.blogspot.com Welcome to Autism Story Sharing Month on The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. We’ll be publishing a new story every weekday until April 30th to help promote autism acceptance and understanding. We’re opening with Emily’s meditation on the meaning and magnetism of autism. -The (other) Editors It’s understandable that parents of autistic children would find themselves helplessly in autism’s pull. I’d hazard that most parents find that the ineluctible attraction of their children awakens a deep, dark, and sometimes frightening core that slept undisturbed in their pre-parenting salad days. That applies, autism or not. But what is it about autism? Why does it seem to draw in others who are not autistic or not autism parents or even family members. What is its attraction? I’m aware of several journalists who found themselves in autism’s orbit and now seem stuck there, satellites to its gigantic, overwhelming attraction. They…