Great Perseverance

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. - Buddhist Saying

In my first full-time job as a psychologist, I was lucky enough to have two children diagnosed with autism in my caseload. One of them had participated in Lovaas’ 1987 landmark study, and the other was the subject of a book about a play therapy technique. Both of these children improved dramatically, so much so that the medical director and child psychiatrist at the agency said to me that he thought these children were misdiagnosed. The reason? “They couldn’t have had autism because they got better.”
Prior to the ABA “revolution”, professionals dismissed children with autism as incapable of learning, of “mentally retarded,” because those simple things other children could learn to do quickly, either through simple imitation or quick demonstration, children with autism could not. But those of us who work in this profession know that this is not the case; that skills which may take a “typical” child one or two trials to learn, may take the child with autism one or two thousand trials. Yet they do learn.
The difference between a child with autism growing up to be an adult with autism and a child with autism who may grow up nearly indistinguishable from his or her peers can be boiled down practically to one thing: perseverance. It is the great perseverance of those around them who have the patience to work hour after hour on teaching simple skills. It is the perseverance of the parents who themselves intervene and struggle, minute-by-minute, with the required caretaking and emotional stamina. And ultimately, it is the perseverance of the child him or herself, who works diligently hour after hour, through much frustration in order to “rewire” a neurological system that is wreaking havoc with his or her development.
The “magic” that is ABA is, of course, no magic at all. Those of us who ply that trade have often wondered why it took so long for ABA pioneers to “discover” that simply taking skills and breaking them up into their component parts and training through repetition, prompting and reinforcement could allow our children to break free of the bonds of silence and withdrawal.
Perhaps it is the loneliness of non-functioning in the mainstream world that spurs the perseverance of the child. Or perhaps it is the love and devotion of parents and caregivers, who themselves persevere. But this determination to keep going, to keep trying which method works for which individual and to repeat and repeat until there is progress, turns into a reciprocal experience. We persevere so the child perseveres. When the child perseveres it inspires us to do likewise.
Each child with autism presents a unique set of challenges. But one thing that is shared among most is the sense that change occurs ever so slowly. It is easy to give up in the face of the pain. It is a similar challenge each of us faces when confronted with our own devastations, such as the loss of a loved one, our own diagnosis of a life-threatening illness, or a traumatic life upheaval. At times, the devastation can be so great that we feel as though we are losing our breath.
There are many clichés about what comes next. But the bottom line is that we must take one breath at a time, walk one step at a time, face the right direction and keep moving. We must not lose our great faith, we must hold on to our great doubt as our partner, and above all, we must persevere.