Opening Walker’s heart and mind

"Make him pull the cardboard away!" Walker pulled. Cliff hid behind again. Walker pulled it. Cliff put a dinosaur in his mouth. Walker grabbed it back.

"Hide it in your hand," directed Greenspan, quickly. "Ask him, 'Where's the dinosaur?' "

Walker looked around; Cliff made an enticing clicking sound to catch his attention. Walker grabbed the dinosaur.

"Now hide it again. 'Where's the dinosaur?' " encouraged Greenspan.

Cliff quickly hid the dinosaur under his legs.

"Now hide it in one hand and pretend it's in the other."

Walker found the dinosaur quickly.

"Now you're cookin'," said Greenspan.

The three-hour-long appointment went like that. Each time Walker proved he could do something, Greenspan made us sweat to make him go a step further.

When it was my turn again, I found even the old games, the "tower game" to be a challenge. It seemed to me that Walker was tired, obsessed with finding comfort. I was consistently thwarted by the bedeviling Oriental rug strings. Walker grabbed and sucked and seemed to pull himself into a vortex, a private world that we were no part of. There seemed no reaching him. It was clear to me that Walker was exhausted, perhaps more than I'd ever seen him. Arlene had taught me to read the signs, yet now Greenspan seemed to be ignoring them.

Still, he could see that Walker was tired because he said, "Say, 'You tired buddy?' (He gave his voice the tenor of a cartoon mouse.) 'I'm going to lie on your tummy.' "

I said it, I said what the doctor said, in the cartoon voice, and I lay on Walker's tummy. Walker began pushing me. I came back. He pushed me again — this time he was laughing. I was laughing, too.

"Oh, you're a good kicker," I said, finding myself lost in a moment of joy with Walker, pushing at his legs and laughing. Walker laughed again, kicked me, and pulled my hair. All of a sudden, he pulled himself up at complete attention, his posture firm and reaching upward. I had thought he was too tired, too sensitive. Now, he seemed a different child, ready for action.

"You see that," said Greenspan. "You take a simple thing like him tuning out, lying down passive, and turn it into a game, and see what he does? He pulls up and wants to play some more." I'd seen Walker laughing maniacally, yet there was a joyousness to him now that seemed unfamiliar.

After two hours, Cliff and I were exhausted, but what we'd accomplished wasn't enough for Greenspan. He wanted Walker to make choices with me. He'd noticed that Walker had enjoyed it when I took his hands and swung them back and forth.

"Mom, why don't you sit in front of Walker," he suggested. "Now show him your hands; hold them up. Tell him this one will be a 'back-and-forth' game. (He indicated his right hand and swung his head back and forth.) And tell him this one will be 'a kiss.'" (He indicated his left hand.) "Which game does Walker want? Now try to make it juicy and make it fun." Greenspan prompted me, with the elevated tone of a clown at a child's birthday party: "Touch my hand, buddy. Which one do you want?" (At eleven months old he's got to make choices? I thought to myself.)

Walker began touching my hands, yet I didn't have the feeling he completely got the rules of the game. I was working harder than I'd ever worked in my life, kissing him if he touched one hand, prompting him to keep up the game, whipping his arms back and forth, his body gleefully moving with them. I wasn't sure he knew he was making choices at all. Still, he was with me.

The evening after the appointment, Cliff and I were sitting in a restaurant with Walker. Greenspan had told us that we would need to make Walker work for what he wanted. "You must become the button that makes anything he wants happen."

"I'll give you this cup," I said, "if you squeeze my finger." Walker didn't react. We weren't sure he was even intelligent enough to understand. I said it again.

The boy who had previously never responded to a verbal request put his hand up to mine and squeezed.

Excerpted from “The Boy Who Loved Windows: Opening the Heart and Mind of a Child Threatened With Autism” by Patricia Stacey. Copyright © 2003 by Patricia Stacey. Published by Da Capo Press, a division of Perseus Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.

MORE FROM BOOKS

Books Section Front

‘Polar Obsession’ How eating right can make you happy 10 years later, ‘Nanny Returns’ to new problems Gifts for bookworms: Authors share top picks Is there a link between dogs and divorce? A kid’s guide to scoring gifts from Santa Al’s Book Club goes retro: ‘Nancy Drew,’ ‘Hardy Boys’ Paranormal romance plays in ‘The Seven Rays’ Brother West: ‘Being true to the funk of living’ ‘Viagra Diaries’ explores dating among 60+ set Books Section Front   Add Books headlines to your news reader: