Dear Stranger
Your son's autistic, just like mine.
by Amy Lutz
September 13, 2007
Not necessarily, Susan Chaplick, Jonah's speech therapist, said when I asked her what I should have done. Despite the astronomical increase in the number of autistic children — American figures generally hover around 1 in 150 — there are still doctors, Susan said, that tell concerned parents that boys often don't talk until past their second birthdays; who don't ask whether those children can point or imitate or make good eye contact. I was shocked. If there's one thing that all the different factions within the autism community can agree upon, it's the importance of early intervention. Some studies have claimed that up to fifty percent of autistic children achieve a full amelioration of symptoms through early intervention. Given this, it seems terribly negligent for pediatricians to overlook indicators of delayed development.
And maybe it's not just the pediatricians who are being negligent. My husband thought my silence in the music class represented a "moral failure." He didn't care how awkward it would have been to approach a total stranger, or how unlikely it was that she would take my word over that of her doctor, who obviously had never suggested a problem of this magnitude. "You have a responsibility to the child," he said, simply.
But is it that simple? What, exactly, do we owe other people? Clearly, if I saw a burglar breaking into a home, IWhat, exactly, do we owe other people? would call the police. I would pull a swimmer who was struggling out of the water and cry out to a person about to step into traffic. And not only would these people be grateful for my assistance, but I have no doubt I would suffer the full judgment of society if I allowed these events to proceed without interfering.
And yet . . . "Never again," my friend Stacey Tanenbaum — whose son Jordan was in an autistic support class with Jonah five years ago — announced, when I asked her if she had ever suggested to a parent that her child might be autistic. "Nothing good has ever come from it." She said that her observations have been met only with anger. One acquaintance never spoke to Stacey again — even after official confirmation that her daughter was on the severe end of the autistic spectrum. Another friend of mine with an autistic son, Stacey Fliegelman, admits that she has been reluctant to confront parents because she knows "they don't want to hear it."
©2007 Amy Lutz and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Amy S.F. Lutz's work has appeared in dozens of
literary journals, including Cream City Review, The American
Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, and Mid-American Review. She and
her husband have five children. She and her sister chronicle their two-family household in the blog whoelsewantstoliveinmyhouse.com |
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