Introductions

Today we were doing a photo shoot for our Faces of Autism campaign and a fellow Autism Mom was there with her daughter and her son with Autism. Her daughter is around Ryan's age and is very cute. Ryan noticed and wanted to talk to her. He asked her mother if he could talk to her (the ultimate gentleman!! lol), then proceed to ask her what her name is, (with prompting) offer her his name, and awkwardly sticking his hand out to shake her hand. He concluded with a "It's nice to meet you".

I couldn't help but cry.

Ryan was trying so hard to perform the correct social duties. He wants to know the proper ways of doing these things, even though they are very challenging for him. He wants to have nice manners, say the right thing and do things 'just like everyone else'. It makes me cry for two reasons. One is happy and one is sad. It makes me cry out of happiness that he is growing, developing, and he WANTS to learn these social nuances that are so hard for him to understand. It makes me sad because it IS such a challenge for him. It was painful and awkward to watch him thinking through every movement, every word, searching for the right thing to do next. It's almost like he was talking to himself internally, going through this step by step, like we do in therapy.

We take for granted simple things such as extending a hand to someone when we first meet them, or casually saying 'nice to meet you!'. For Ryan, this is a step by step process that he has to be aware of all the time. But what makes me so proud is that he is doing it on his own now. I didn't prompt him to introduce himself. He WANTED to know her name and to meet her. Take THAT Autism!!