Teaching Eric Guitar (Video)

Here's a video with Eric's new guitar teacher Stu Miller (Shane, his teacher in the previous guitar video moved back to Indiana). Stu talks about the differences and similarities between teaching Eric and teaching typical students. I'm always nervous whenever Eric starts with a new instructor. I don't know what preconceptions about autism they may have, or if the instructors want to deal with the extra effort. Fortunately, Stu...

Switching Schools

This is a shortened version of a video we made for the Denver school district in 2007 (Eric was eight) --just before we moved from Florida to Colorado. From previous experience we knew Eric would be withdrawn in a new environment with new teachers and classmates. Because of that we were afraid that the school would set low expectations for Eric. We wanted to show what he was like...

Little Lost Robot

I’ve been working on a new page for the blog called Art and found this old drawing done by Eric when he was 6 years old. I showed it to Eric today and asked why he had liked the movie I, Robot so much when he was little. He said, “I used to feel like Sonny.”  Maybe Eric still does not have the language yet to verbally express...

The Irony Mask

I don’t know any boy who loves Halloween more than Eric. Last fall, for the first time since he started trick-or-treating, he did not go door to door with his younger brother. Instead he wanted to stay home and hand out treats from our front porch. He wore his Michael Myers mask and silently waited outside as the sun set. This was the only day of the year...

Music Therapy (Video) - Dance

Here is more of the Music Therapy session from 10 years ago when Eric was 4.  This segment involved dancing, and Eric was pretty distracted (except for the spinning part). Surprise, surprise an autistic kid that likes spinning :-)  Here are some observations made by the therapist during this dance segment which focused on gross-motor skills. Eric appears to have some adequate, age-appropriate gross-motor skills. He was able to...

Mask and Music

Over a year ago, when Eric was 13, he became fixated with horror movies, particularly the Halloween series and the character Michael Meyers. I was somewhat concerned about how the violence was being processed in his head. But more strongly, I felt the need to engage Eric through his interests and to learn together. “Follow his lead,” is what had become ingrained in me beginning in his early...

What's So Funny?

Anyone else asking this question might just seemed annoyed. But when Eric asks, he really wants to know why that is considered funny. He wants to understand the mechanics of humor. He wants to fit in this world of ours where everyone else seems to know when to laugh and when not to. This is very difficult for me to explain to Eric, because I just don’t know...