When Children With Autism Grow Up - BuzzFeed News:
I was led to a corner of the room I hadn’t before seen. It was darker
than the rest of the space and a few decibels quieter. In the nook, I
saw Scooter. He had a stringy mustache and hair with great curling
wings. One of his eyes wandered slightly. He sat behind a
crescent-shaped table padlocked to the wall at both ends of the curved
top. Scattered in front of him were piles of flashcards, jars of beads,
toy cars, unfinished puzzles, crumbs from lunch, and a laminated piece
of tagboard with a strip of Velcro down the center. As soon as he saw
me, his face tightened into a sort of grimace, baring his teeth, but the
rest of his face, his eyes, posture, and hands were unexpressive as he
blankly leaned out into the dim classroom.
“Well, hi there,” I said, waving. I began to clam up in all of the pits of my body.
“Well, hi there,” Scooter said, and he let out a deep laugh.
The
person I was going to meet that day had been a child in my mind. In
front of me was a man. A man only two years younger than me.