Weekend Update: Autism Awareness in a Pandemic

 

Long-time readers might remember that every April, I do a post about my daughter who has autism for Autism Awareness Month. This year, I decided to focus on how the pandemic has affected her. Middle Child, as I’ve referred to her since starting this blog, is in her late 20’s and lives with us. As background for newer readers, she earned an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education, but did not have much success in that field. For the last 4.5 years, she has worked as a library page.

One thing that persons with autism need is structure. They like to know what to expect. When our daughter was in elementary school, things like substitute teachers and family vacations caused emotional meltdowns. Anything new has been difficult for her. I learned to create ‘social stories’ for her as a way to help her cope. This involved writing a story along with pictures in order for her to preview what would happen. If there wasn’t time, I would just verbally give her the step-by-step rundown in the car. I still do this, and in fact did it yesterday when I took her to a dermatologist for the first time.

As you can imagine, the pandemic had the prospect to really throw her for a loop. We’ve all been living in fear of what happens next. But I’m VERY happy to report that she’s done quite well through it all. 

I remember her getting in the car 13 months ago and telling me that her boss had told her that the library would be closed for 3 weeks. She was understandably anxious. Little did we know that the 3 weeks would turn into 4 months. Even more upsetting was having to cancel birthday plans with her best friend that weekend. She has very few social opportunities, so it's always disappointing for all of us when she misses out on things like that.

Since then, the library has opened and closed a number of times and her hours were cut in half for a while. One thing that we were concerned about was how she was going to handle wearing a mask for 4 straight hours (the length of her shifts). Another characteristic of autism is tactile sensitivity. While she's choosy about the type of mask she wears, it really hasn't been an issue overall. And I must say, she's learned to roll with the library's open-shut-open-shut program!

In addition, she really stepped out of her comfort zone and latched onto Zoom. Our church, though small, began offering Zoom meetings right away: daily prayer groups, Bible studies, as well as worship services. My daughter has taken advantage of all of this for a year now. She has also continued meeting, via Zoom, with the college & career group, participating in book discussions about books that are probably above her reading level. Got to give the girl some credit! Lame ole' me has barely done any of this. I really don't like Zooming, plus, I'm lazy!

Some of you may remember that music is her hobby. She has been singing and playing the piano for almost 20 years. She had to give up her voice lessons, but has been able to continue with piano instruction via Zoom or Facetime with her teacher. As a way to show how proud we've been for all she's gone through this past year, we decided to buy her a digital piano for her birthday. She went from this:

to this:

There have been some bumps along the way, but I think her level of emotional maturity has really soared through it all.