Perception

I borrowed this from "A Diary of a Mom". You can find the entire article at http://adiaryofamom.wordpress.com/2009/08/


I’d like to ask you to think for a moment about perception. I’ll use myself as an example and ask you to take a minute to think about how it is that you perceive me, standing here in front of you. Please be nice – tall and thin might be words you could consider. (ed note ~ This was the one time that I got a laugh from the crowd and truth be told, it was far heartier than I would have liked.)


You probably don’t have too much of an opinion yet. Perhaps you like my blouse (and if you don’t, don’t tell me) or well, perhaps you think that I look like I might have something worthwhile to say.

Well, what if I presented myself differently? What if I couldn’t help but flap my fingers in front of my eyes because I couldn’t handle the sensory input in the room? What if I yelped sharply any time someone coughed or cleared their throat because I perceived it as an attack on my already overly taxed system. What if I bit my arms or hit myself in the face because my body couldn’t make sense of the messages that the environment was sending to my brain? What if I were spinning in circles here in front of you?

What if I had limited words? What if I repeated the same phrase over and over and over again? What if I had no words at all?

How would you perceive me?

And what if we were all third graders? What if I were a fellow student in your classroom? What if I sometimes lashed out or bolted from the room? What if I cried and got frustrated and didn’t have the words to tell you why?

What if I were YOUR child?

How would you perceive me?

I am incredibly blessed that my little girl has been as lightly touched by autism as she has. I often say that we swim at the shallow end of the autism pool. In the shallow end of this pool, perception is vital. At the deep end, it can be everything.