Category Archives: Autism/Aspergers/Mental Health

Ministry and the Disabled

Posted by on November 13, 2011 No comments

I found this 15 minute video, from Dallas Theological Seminary to be a refreshing insight of Ministry and the Disabled.

This is precisely where I am.  But he left out one category:  social disability.  I struggle with Autism.

Ministry and the Disabled

Ministry and the Disabled (2007) (Summary of the Video)

I. Who are the disabled? (disabilitystatistics.org)

1. Sensory (Blindness, Deafness, Severe Vision or Hearing Loss)

2. Physical Disability (trouble moving by themselves)

3. Mental Disability. (Learning, Remembering, Concentrating)

4. Go outside the home

5. Employment

6. Self Care

Disabled over the age of 5, and NON-institutionalized. (In U.S.)

10 million
10 – 15 million
20 million

Over 20 million?

As of 2007, 41.3 million non-institutionalized and over the age of 5.

1 in 5 have a functional disability.

54 million in the U.S. (National Organization on Disability)

As age goes up, chances of disability go up.

Majority of disabled over 18.

Special needs. Special and needy but geared only to kids.

Disability viewed as abnormality, but is it?

Life between trees

Garden of Eden                              Heaven
Tree of Life            Fall of Man         Tree of Life
Gen 2:9                 Gen 3               Rev 22:22
(disability/abnormal)   disability/normal   disability/abnormal)

Rev 21: God wipes away tears, and no more suffering.

55 y.o. stroke victim. Can’t speak, but otherwise okay. Where do they put him? Special needs ministry for kids.

Less then 15% of churches have a disabled ministry.

53% have no church.

54 million people — 1/2 don’t attend church.

2 in 7 families have a disabled family member.

85% of marriages end in divorce when one disabled child present.

No public places. No baby sitter. No church support.

What do we do?

The role of online church ministry in the world today

As you saw from the previous video, about 20% of the population of the United States is disabled. Some mildly, some severely.

I have Aspergers Syndrome. A form of Autism. I do NOT read social information correctly. Body language and cues, are foreign to me. I stumble through social situations. Always uncomfortable. Always unsure, of what to do or say next.

Some parents of severely autistic children, find it hard to find a place to worship, simply because the church does not accommodate autism, or traumatic brain injury. How to you reach these folks for Christ, is they can not come to a brick and mortar place of worship?

The church instead, goes to them. 24/7/365 online church is streamed live via the internet. For me, it was God sent. I was too far away from my old church, and could not afford to travel that far. I tried to find a church close by, but while you can kick the tires on a car, they don’t like you kicking people in the congregation. Online church allows me to be as engaged in the discussion, or as anonymous as I need to be.

They are no expectations to meet. There are other Christians there to help guide you along the journey to pray for you. Chat Moderators from all over the world, allow services to be global in nature, and not just minister to one locality.

The world is now a global village. And to shun a person or pigeon hole them because of a physical or mental disability, is becoming less of a barrier. How do we reach these people?

One person at a time.

The ABC’s of Communication

A – Adjust your agenda. Make the time to minster to these people. Meet them where they are at. Home, lonely, often dejected. Each has a story that must be told, must he heard, and must be prayed for. Take the time to listen, and meet the needs of the individuals.

B — Build a bridge. Find something you both are genuinely interested in, and cross that bridge together. It could be movies, art, music, tv, books….anything. Find something you both have in common and both enjoy. This requires you to invest time in the life of another person.

C — Communicate the character of Christ. People do not need to see our mouth flapping, they need to see our life working. It means being as transparent and open and honest as possible.

As one author said:

“Tell me how much you pray for a person,
and I will tell you how much you have loved them.”

Brillat-Savarin

Wayno

The Real Me: A look at Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Learning Disabilities

Posted by on October 13, 2011 1 comment

TO: CLASSROOM TEACHERS

SUBJECT: The Real Me – A Composite Picture

FROM: The Dyslexic Student in your Class (assisted by Jo Polk, Language Science Teacher)

I just wanted to write you a note to say thanks for all the time and trouble you put in working with me at school every day. Also, there are a lot of things I would like for your to know about me, but trying to put my thoughts down on paper is the hardest thing I do, so my Language Science teacher said she would help me try to tell you what I’m really like.

I know you are interested in what I’m really like because you had me fill out that questionnaire about what I liked best. Well, I told you the food I liked best was hot dogs, but I hate hot dogs! What I really like is spaghetti, but I couldn’t spell that. I also told you my favorite subject is math, but I had to put that down, because I couldn’t spell “science.” So I never can say what I really mean when I’m writing because I can’t spell what I want to say. My teacher says that some studies show that there is a relation between violence and an inability to say what you want to say, either because of a poor vocabulary or because the words are just “tied up” inside of you and won’t come out no matter how hard you try. Sometimes I do just feel like I’m going to explode!

I know that I must be a puzzle in class sometimes because, even though I look like the other kids and act like them, most of the time, I just can’t seem to do my work as well as they do. Maybe you just think I’m kind of weird and that’s why I wanted to try to tell you what it feels like to be me.

This is kind of what it feels like: Do you remember what it felt like when you had that earache and had to have drops and a piece of cotton in your ear? Or when you had your eyes dilated and words looked blurred, and you couldn’t read very well? Or when you had a broken finger or arm and had to do everything with the “wrong” hand? Or how frustrated you feel when you can’t bring up the word you want? Or you can’t remember someone’s name? Or you drink too much of what you want? Or you drink too much coffee and have a case of coffee nerves, and you feel all jittery and uncomfortable inside – and no one else really knows it?

Then suppose you’re struggling with all these things – and the principal walks in to appraise you – and stays six hours! (A whole school day!) (Mom said I should put that in to help you see how I feel, because she said even a TEACHER gets blurry eyed and jittery when she’s getting appraised – whatever that is!) If you can imagine all these things then maybe you feel something of the way I feel at the end of a school day. So sometimes I go home and blow up at Mom and Dad – and they ground me!

I can do some things pretty well though. For instance, I’m a fairly good math student, but words are almost meaningless to me. (That’s what dyslexia is, you know – “bad words.”) So when you give me vocabulary terms to learn in math – they might as well be Japanese! Same way with computer terms or word problems. You see a lot of times I can solve math problems in my head, but when I have to write them down, I make a lot of mistakes – especially if they involve subtraction or multiplication facts.

And I know you must wonder why I almost never get everything copied down from the board. Well, I’m what the doctor calls dysgraphic, which means that my hand just won’t always do what my brain tells it to, so my writing is cramped and out of line and has poor spacing. Besides that, I’m left handed, and I just never did learn to hold my pencil correctly.
Because it’s so hard for me to copy from the board I very
often don’t get home with a complete vocabulary list or notes to study, so I make a bad grade on my test because I didn’t have all the information to study.

Of course copying from the board is usually not as hard as copying form a transparency. Besides the fact that the lights bother me, the letters sometimes blur and seem to move, so by the time I relocate a word that I was working on, the transparency has been moved, and I’m completely lost. That’s usually when I kick Bobby to make him mess up too. And if you’re talking while I’m trying to copy – forget it! I don’t get the notes copied and I also miss what you’re saying!

Just think how confusing it is to try to work with these handicaps in a room with twenty-five or thirty other people moving about and making noise. I also have to try to resist what my teacher calls the “visual static” of highly coloured bulletin boards maps, pictures, charts, posters, etc. I like these – they’re pretty! But the “gatekeeper” in my brain lets in too much of this stimulation and it boggles my mind.

My teacher says all of this stuff makes me have an “output deficiency.” She says that means something is different about the integration process – that after sensory information is received by my brain, something different happens in the neuronal, electrical and/or chemical processes somewhere in my central nervous system. This different neurological organization often keeps me from responding properly to stimuli. (She’s always talking weird like that! We just try to overlook her.)

But some of these things that are different about me make me really good at things like art and music and drama. And everybody in my house brings me things when they need to be fixed. I’m a great swimmer and golfer. And I’m learning photography as a hobby, and I can usually think of a solution to problems that’s different from what everyone else comes up with – and I fell good about that. I’m inquisitive too, and I want to know how everything works.

But yeah, I know I’m in trouble a lot. You’re probably thinking about the bus conduct report I got last week. But how was I to know when the bus driver said, “Hit the seat!” that she meant for me to sit down. Instead, I whacked the seat with my lunch kit and tore the upholstery and she got mad! Why don’t adults say what they mean?

Another thing about me is, what I’d really like to do is to play sports, but it seems like I’m always doing something wrong in football practice. When the coach calls us into the muddle (seems like that to me!), I try to concentrate but my auditory mis-perception problem gets in the way, and I hear what he says, but I just don’t understand what he means. My dad says too, that I can remember some things like an elephant, but that my short term memory is not so good, so I forget the plays. Then when I get on the field and run right instead of left, well.

But I always have too much homework to play football anyway, so I thought I would try band, and I could practice at night after I got my homework done. Boy, I’ve got my problems there too, though. The director tells me I must look at him and if I do, I lose my place on the music, and all the lines and spaces and notes run together and I’m just lost. And the rhythm! I know I couldn’t hear accent in words, but I didn’t know that I would also have trouble with the strong and weak beats in music!

Well it may not matter much, because I don’t want to be a football star of a musician when I grow up, anyway. I want to be a veterinarian – or maybe a surgeon like my mother’s brother. Maybe I can make it, because Mom said my uncle couldn’t have made it through medical school without a reader. I told Mom I couldn’t believe they have basal readers even in medical school.! (Those things will haunt me all my life, I guess!) She said that wasn’t what she meant -just like the bus driver!

Well anyway, my parents say it was the luckiest day of our lives when we moved to this school and I got put in classes with teachers who try to understand and work with me. They said kids like me used to drop out of school – but, then those kids didn’t have teachers like you!

I’ve got to get out of here. It’s 5:30 already and dinner’s at 6:00. Yikes! That’s not 5:30 – it’s 6:25! Oh, no. I’m late again! Mom says I have NO sense of time!

Well thanks again. See you in class tomorrow. I’ll be the one rummaging through my backpack trying to find my pencil and paper. So now for long!

Jo Polk 10/1/87

Copyright (c) Jo Polk – All rights reserved.

Regarding Dysgraphia: (personal note)

My whole learning process is oriented toward hearing, not seeing. It was how I coped with this disability. I never even knew I had it. I just knew, it was hard to learn subjects like math, which is all visual. I had to tape lectures in college and listen to them again. Trying for copious notes just didn’t work. It is probably why my eye/hand co-ordination is so poor, and why I do very poorly at video games. I grew up feeling like I was a clumsy”“klutz” and never knew why. I was never good at sports,never good at art, drawing, or so on. Cursive writing is impossible for me. It’s why I print, and use block letters, to this very day. Stroke by stroke, I form each letter.

I discovered this, when I was doing volunteer work at the Orton Dyslexia Society, in the San Fernando Valley. (They have an excellent chapter in San Diego!) I wanted to better understand some of the other kids I meet, who have learning disabilities, as well as myself.

Dysgraphia, like Dyslexia, is covered under the American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA). If I ever return to school, I will be provided with a note taker, at no cost. Early diagnosis, is important. I went most of my life, thinking that I was ”“different!” I was! But now, I know why. Note that the official diagnosis (for me) was made by a Psychiatrist.

There is solace in numbers. CS Lewis said this: ”“Perhaps the most liberating words ever spoken in any language are these:You too? I thought I was the only one!”

And so it goes –

Wayno Guerrini
September 10, 2000
Addendum

I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, in August, 2008.

This is especially poignant:

Dysgraphia

Cases of dysgraphia in adults generally occur after some neurological trauma. Dysgraphia may also be diagnosed in a person with Tourette syndrome, ADHD or an autism spectrum disorder such as Asperger syndrome.

This explains a lot of my childhood struggles.

The Sameness of Days

Posted by on July 20, 2011 No comments

Reprinted from here

Wayno

The Sameness of Days

Those of us with Aspergers/Autism find it difficult to navigate in an environment that is both foreign and un-inviting to us.

On one hand, you will find we like things in our environment, the same each day. We may wear the same clothes, watch the same tv program’s, eat the same food. We like things ordered, and to a degree, predictable. We want to find the keys and remote in exactly the same place each day.

We almost ritualise certain events. I myself have a tendency to eat virtually the same things everyday. Breakfast is usually hot oatmeal cooked on a stove (NOT microwaved!) It’s not that we don’t know how, it is that innately we desire a sense of control and order over our environment. This is shown in the things we say and do. For variety though, I do have polenta occasionally, Cheerios, and on Wednesdays and Sundays – an omelette which I make for myself. It’s not laziness or lack of initiative, or even lack of knowledge (I am an accomplished cook.) We have a daily schedule, to which invariably, we internally adhere.

We sit in the same place in restaurants. Why? Because we know where everything is. God help us, if the floor is wet, and we have to sit someplace strange. (The booth next door.) I am fortunate in having a friend here, that understands that I need to scope out the inside of a restaurant to make sure it is not too crowded. Autistics NEVER like to have their escape path to the outside, blocked. Perhaps unconsciously, we position ourselves so that we can always see the exit. When things get too intense for us from a sensory overload (just several people talking at the same time in a room, makes a cacophony of sound, that overwhelm many of us.) I have left meetings simply because my escape route was suddenly cut off. Sometimes we need to exit a situation, that becomes over stimulating for us.

I was in the Emergency Room of a hospital here last week. Many of us, can’t filter out the distractions: lights, sounds, colors, noises, or odors that envelop us. And so we may ask to dim the lights, close the curtain or close the door. Anything to block the over stimulation. When I informed the staff that I had Aspergers, I might as well have said I am from another planet. Most Medical Professionals I have discovered, are 129% clueless when it comes to Autism.

My Primary Care Doctor, let me explain to him, what having Aspergers is like for me. He took the time, to accommodate Autism. His welcome and inviting tone and manner greeted me when I was finally transferred to a room. I didn’t have to explain. He already knew. More people would be wise to follow in my physician’s footsteps, and take a few minutes to educate themselves, on how Autism affects our daily lives.

A good place to start: All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome by Kathy Hoopmann

As much as we like things to stay the same, we also want to form bonds and friendships. That is an area, where we Aspies (as we call ourselves) don’t function well. We are unable to read the social cues and body language of the people around us. It is very hard for us to form relationships, simply because we don’t have the skills necessary to do so.

We isolate ourselves from a harsh and cruel world, because we are tired of the rejection and snide comments made by NT’s. (Neuro-Typicals. Our name for people that are NOT on the Autistic Spectrum.) We sit in the corner, and pretend to be a wall flower. We don’t belong. We don’t fit in. We feel like the proverbial square peg in a round hole. We go into survival mode. Magical thinking.

If we sit in a corner, we can be invisible and won’t have to talk. Gosh what do we talk about? I don’t watch sports, and the weather: Yup it’s hot out there, all right! Aspies are not interested in weather, or sports per se. But I speak for myself only. We’d rather discuss: books, movies, politics, religion, sex or music. Anything other then the dull. Mundane. Ordinary. We might discuss things which are resolutely insignificant to the world, but which makes our inner world, revolve.

Yeah we’re the kid in the corner who sits by himself, because he is so beaten up emotionally, that removing himself mentally into an imaginary world, might be the only method of coping. I am the adult, who sits in the same booth almost everyday, orders the same thing off the menu everytime, and sits alone. I talk to imaginary friends as well, because there is no one else.

Pets for many of us, are the only creatures we know on the planet, that won’t automatically judge us. They love unconditionally: just as I am. We don’t have to hide who we are. We are free to be ourselves. They give back to us, the love that the world so harshly with holds.

Many of us, are penurious. We give our time, instead of money. All we want is to be recognised for our contribution, however small it may be. We depend on others to remind us of God’s love and God’s forgiveness, by returning a simple please or thank you. Basic Human kindness. The little things.

We all need affirmation. What’s that? It’s simply saying the right thing, at the right time. Looking beyond the quirks and eccentricities, to see someone and something of value. Few people are willing to take the time to get to know us, let us stumble through friendship, and make a deep and enduring impression on our lives. Those few that do venture into the world of Aspergers, may find a deep, abiding friendship and loyalty that is unparalleled in their own world. But until that happens, everyday is like the day that came before. Nothing varies. Nothing changes.

Wayno Guerrini

internationalpress.com