There was a time when I couldn't take my five-year old son out. David is autistic. His inability to communicate his wants and needs to us made our lives a never-ending guessing game. We used trial and error to try and determine what it was David wanted to tell us as he had no method of functional communications. If we made repeated errors, we could pretty much count on a series of tantrums before the outing ended. It seemed safer to keep David at home, where at least he was content.

All of that has changed now. I am delighted that I can now take my son to a restaurant and watch him participate actively in ordering his meal, or requesting the need to go to the bathroom.

Last night, in celebration of my son's first true sentences, I took David out to dinner. Just myself and my little boy, alone, together. This is something I would have never dared attempt even a month ago. But I believed he was up to the challenge. His behavior had been perfect for weeks now.

David has always adored French fries, and the Washington Street Alehouse in Wilmington, Delaware serves them just the way he likes them.

The woman at the table next to ours couldn't have missed the fact that something was different about my five-year old son. She had spent the good part of her meal gawking as my son worked to communicate with me through pictures velcroed to a three ring binder. "I want orange juice" my son said, by constructing pictures on a sentence strip and handing them to me. As soon as I acknowledged his request, he then put down a French fry icon and paired it with the words, "I want".

"Oh, you want French fries!" David nodded his head--something it took me three months to teach him. His smile was beatific. Joy bubbled from the recesses of my heart which had been shadowed with darkness for far too long.

The woman at the next table rolled her eyes and snorted. Her obvious opinion that children like mine should remain hidden from the world melted her attractive face into a mask of bitter derision. Suddenly, she looked ugly to me. I chose to ignore her. "Perhaps she thinks what David has is catching," I thought to myself.

I really didn't give a flying flip what she thought. This was a moment of triumph for my child. After years of struggling to teach David to understand, process, and retain verbal communications, the Picture Exchange Communications program revolutionized his life. David handed his menu request to our waitress, and she immediately wrote down his order. "He's so cute," she said.

"Why yes, he is, and such a good boy," I bragged.

~

This journey through teaching David to talk with pictures has been peppered with a thousand little miracles, the biggest one being my acceptance that my little boy simply did not possess the ability to process language. But the discovery that he could process written words paired with pictures led me to explore implementing Pyramid Educational Associate's: "Picture Exchange Communications System" with David.

Finally, we found something David could be successful at. He caught on to the idea of engaging another human being's attention with pictures immediately. Over the months he moved from simple one-word requests to forming real sentences. He communicated more and more fluently in a language anyone could understand.

My son proved time and again he could be taught to navigate this world. My student became my teacher. My curriculum was my daily discovery or the precious personality that was my son.

Recently, David began commenting on his environment: I see, I hear, I feel. It was a step that not all picture communicators can grasp. It was a step which expanded David's world a hundred times over.

Finally, David had a way to tell me his wants and needs. He began to initiate little picture conversations:

"David, do you want the red car?"

"I want blue car."

"This one?"

"I want big blue car."

Day by day, as my son mastered the program further, I began to discover glimpses of the bright and engaging little boy who for the past five years had lived largely trapped inside himself.

Nothing soothed the scars on my heart so much as the pride that beamed from my son's face as he participated actively in the world around him.

~

"I see balloon," David told me with his pictures. I followed my son's brilliant blue gaze towards the gawking woman's table. Ah, they were here for a birthday party. Her son, who was about David's age gawked, too. But I knew that his curiousity was the natural interest of a child who was experiencing something new.The balloons belonged to him--he and his family were apparently celebrating his sixth birthday.

"Yes, you see balloon," I told my son. It hurt me more than a little when I placed a red "x" over the balloon picture to tell David that this balloon was not his. David adores balloons, he always has. But he accepted that this one was not meant for him. Again, pride filled me.

Our meal was delivered and David ate his French fries with gusto. He sat as quietly and calmly as any child his age possibly could. But I couldn't help but notice that every now and then his curious stare moved to the bouquet of bright balloons dancing over the table of gawkers.

Honestly, I was impressed with David's self restraint--he never once made an overt motion towards the next table. He was content to simply enjoy the bobbing balloon ballet playing out before him. I don't think I've ever been tickled with my boy. His joy was contagious. I couldn't stop smiling.

As David indicated he'd finished his meal, we paid our check and rose to leave. As we passed the table of gawkers, David stooped to the floor. He created "I see balloons" on his sentence strip and showed it to the birthday boy at the next table.

The little boy didn't know what to say, so he simply gave David a "thumb's up" sign, then reached up to pluck a balloon from the boquet. His mother snatched the balloon from her son's hand.

"Those are my son's balloons," she said, slapping the sentence strip out of
David's hand.

Her snarling face met with mine. "Why don't you keep that child at home until he can learn how to act?"

I guess I could have lit into her. Maybe I should have. But her son's gesture had touched me. I picked up David's sentence strip and placed it back on his book. As I stood to leave, I met with a room full of silent diners, all of them staring. I feared if I didn't end this horrible situation quickly, David may quit communicating forever.

I looked at the woman's son and said "Happy Birthday." I prayed she didn't garnish satisfaction from the film of tears rising to my eyes.

I tried to get David to the door as quickly as possible. It was a difficult journey, as tears were already pouring from my eyes. My mascara collected in the corners of my eyes and my vision blurred. I didn't think I'd ever navigate my son to the front door, but finally we burst out into the last slanting rays of the evening sun.

I sat down on the sidewalk to collect myself. David sat on my lap and began to flip through his notebook, searching for picture words. Finally, he found the words he wanted and handed his sentence strip to me. "I want hug."

"Oh, yes, baby, Mommy wants a hug, too."

~

"They" tell us our autistic children do not possess the tools to understand emotions. "They" tell us our children can not tolerate affection. I'd have given anything if THEY had been watching as my son's slender arms wound themselves around my neck. I'd have given anything to see "their" reaction as my little boy kissed my cheek, hugged me hard then took me by the hand to
indicate it was time to go home.

~

Somewhere in Wilmington, Delaware there is a little boy who turned six-years old yesterday.

I wonder if his mother realizes how fortunate she is to have such a bright, communicative child. I wonder if she remembers to thank God with every passing year for her son's continued good health. I wonder if she ever remembers to be grateful as the word "mother" rolls from her child's lips for the thousandth time that day.

I wonder, and I hope, but I also doubt. After a certain age, narrow minds tend to petrify. Opinions become cast in immutable stone.

In spite of the blatant prejudices of that little boy's mother, I saw a flicker kindness in her son's eyes as he considered giving my son one of his many, precious birthday balloons.

I can only hope that child's exposure to my son yesterday provided the seed from which true tolerance may someday take root and bloom. It is children such as these who will make my son's time here on Earth something of value.

~~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For more information on the Picture Exchange Communication Program, please visit: http://www.pecs.com

Many autistic children who use the PECS program consistently for one year by the age of five move on to develop appropriate verbal communications. PECS has also been implemented successfully with many non-verbal autistic adults.

In the last week or so, David has begun verbalizing some of the words on his sentence strip--something I'd have never thought possible as "they" told us he'd never communicate verbally.