Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Tue, 26 Jan 1993 14:55:44 EST
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Daniel Mont <D6M@CORNELLA.BITNET>
Subject:      Mentors

My wife met Alex's mentor (you may remember that among other services
the school is providing a mentor for Alex -- he is a physicistcomputer
person who also works with gifted children) the other day.  He
was quite enthusiastic about working with Alex and said he had lots
of ideas.  He said he did not think it best to work only one-on-one
with Alex.  He thinks that bringing maybe two other kids into their
interaction would still enable him to keep Alex engaged but maybe
afford him the opportunity to connect with other kids who are also
mathematically and scientifically inclined.

Anyway, there first meeting was a smash success!  Carl came into the
room carrying an abacus and Alex, who was in the process of undressing
from playing outside in the snow, supposedly pounced on him, one
shoe off and one shoe on, and started his barrage of questions.  The
two of them got so absorbed in what they were doing that they never
made it to the conference room.  They sat down right in the doorway for
an hour and added and multiplied away on the abacus.  Then they looked
at different fabrics under a microscope.  This meeting for some reason
was one-on-one.  Alex's teacher said it was like one math aura meeting
a similar math aura and fusing as one.  There was an immediate bond
supposedly. This week Carl is bringing an alarm clock.  They are going to
take it apart and see how it works.  I really think this may relieve
some of Alex's boredom factor at school.

When he got home he did not want to talk about his meeting with Carl.
My wife had the clever idea of taking an abacus that we had around the
house and lying it conspicuously in the middle of the living room. It
didn't take long before Alex went over to it and started excitedly
showing her all the things he had learned that day.

People have suggested to us that Alex may be "outgrowing his autism".
I don't believe that is possible, although I do think his autistic
behaviors are much less pronounced.  When he was 2,3, and even 4 it
was clear even to the casual observer that something was different
about Alex and he fit all the classic signs: echolalia, pronoun
reversal, difficulty in transitions, lack of eye contact and affect,
at first outright fear and then just intense discomfort with other
children, lack of imaginitive play, liking structure, learning to
read at a very early age, even spinning some objects when he
was younger.  Now much of that is gone.  His speech is not totally
"normal" -- his intonation is somewhat odd as are some of his speech
patterns, but he is "catching up" to other children.  All the other
non-speech "symptoms" are there but are much less pronounced -- in
many cases it takes a "trained eye" to see them and how they fit
together.  I suspect therefore that we will continue to confront the
"he has outgrown whatever autism he may have had" argument for years
to come.  Even though we have started the evaluation process again
with Dr. Coplan in Syracuse (an M.D. so the school will put more faith
in what he has to say -- don't ask me why, that's just the way it is)
that will not prevent people from saying (if as we expect Dr. Coplan
agrees with us and Alex's previous evaluators) well he may still have
had "traces" of autism at that time but it is gone now-- he is just an
eccentric precocious child.  Is there anything written that talks about
HFA's and how even though they learn (with much effort) to cope well
in a non-autistic world, that at there core there are differences that
still lead to problems (I know that some HFA's, like Sean Barron,
think autism can be overcome -- we have talked about that before on
this list, though --Sean's case aside because I do not know him -- I
find that hard to believe from what I know)?

We will ask Dr. Coplan when we see him.  He requires a referral, which we
have gotten.  We are now in the process of sending him all of Alex's
voluminous records. He'll then send us a questionnaire. After that we
take Alex up for a visit to his office.  If he has anything I will let
you all know.  On one level I don't care if schools think Alex is autistic
or not if they give him the right services.  However, without the diagnosis
I do no think there is a way to ensure the provision of services.
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