There is so much about life that we don't understand unless it affects us personally.
During my two pregnancies I refused to take the tests to determine if my fetuses were developing as expected for "normal" babies. But I did wonder what parenthood would be like if they weren't...
It wasn't until my first grandchild was born that my daughter and I would begin an adventure into the amazing and intriguing world of Autism Spectrum Disorder. His language was not developing "on schedule" so the screening began at 20 months. By the age of 2 he was given the diagnosis of ASD by a neurologist and started speech-language therapy. After 6 months of speech he finally said his first word and he hasn't stopped talking since.
At the age of 5 he could use mental math skills to complete multiplication. By the age of (almost) 10 he has continued to expand his academic skills, with math in particular being well above his grade level expectations. My daughter began homeschooling him when the pandemic shut everything down in spring of 2020. They are the best team and he's ahead of schedule because they work year round, and throughout the day.
But having said all of this, there are many facets to ASD. One of the greatest challenges common to individuals on the spectrum is a noticeable deficit in social skills and my grandson is not an exception. It requires a lot of practice and a lot of reminders, for all of us.
A few months ago, my daughter and I felt it was time to explain to him that his brain works differently than most people's and that there is a term given to that difference: Autism Spectrum Disorder.
We explained that it's called a "spectrum" because no two people are the same who have ASD. Some have great difficulty getting their brain to process information, others have brains that can understand things that most others cannot, but from one end of the spectrum to the other, everyone's brain functions differently than people who are not on the autism spectrum.
After the explanation it was unclear whether he actually understood, or even cared about what we had both stressed over and so thoughtfully practiced before telling him. Neither of us brought it up again for weeks. I finally asked him if he remembered what we had told him, and he said he remembered but that he hasn't really thought about it.
Today, the three of us were doing a modified book study. Reading has not been his favorite subject, but he is tolerating "Wings of Fire." After doing a shared reading activity which involved each of us taking turns reading a page, quizzing the other two for comprehension, followed by my grandson writing a paragraph to summarize. He kept count of how many times he had to rewrite the words, and explained that part of his "autism spectrum" made him "very specific" about how he does his work.
I share this story, working through all the emotions that erupted as he spoke those words. He WAS listening. He DOES understand. And as difficult as it was for us to tell him that he's different from other people... it was just no biggie to him. It's just part of who he is and it doesn't faze him a bit.
How you explain it to your exceptional child is up to you. Just know that it is important to open that conversation. And know that chances are, they already know. They probably just don't know what the name for their exceptionality is... They're waiting to hear it from you.
