Sean Barron - Theres a Boy In Here, Revised edition

Judy Barron

and

Sean Barron

THERE'S A BOY
IN HERE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Judy Barron is a lyricist and a writer who divides her time between writing childrens songs and books and painting floor cloths and faux finishes. She lives in Poland, Ohio.

Sean Barron is a graduate of Youngstown State University and has been a correspondent and copy editor for the Youngstown Vindicator for eighteen years.

There's a Boy in Here

Emerging from the Bonds of Autism

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ISBN: 9781949177398

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank my father for his years of understanding and for spending thousands of hours of his life talking to me. Finally, I heard him. I would also like to thank my sister, Megan, who helped me more than she will ever know.

-Sean Barron, 2002

For Ron and Megan Barron
For the memory of Mildred Johnston Welch

FOREWORD to the Revised Edition of Theres a Boy in Here

Dr. Temple Grandin
Professor of Animal Science
Colorado State University

S ean Barron has written an incredible new update to his book.* Since the publication of the original book in 1992, Sean has really grown and developed. It requires constant effort to experience and learn about new things. In my own experiences, I have had to work harder to master something new. When I started my design business, it took me three years to learn how to design cattle-handling facilities. This required going to every feedlot in Arizona and discovering the designs that worked and the ones that were poor. I then put all the good features together to form new designs. The key was putting a lot of little details together into a whole. In one of Seans talks, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, he called this same process islands growing and coming together. As he learned more bits of information, he could see how all the pieces fit together to form a concept.

People with autism are bottom-up thinkers. To reduce rigid thinking, our database of knowledge has to be filled with more and more information. When our brains are filled with lots of information, it can be separated into multiple categories instead of two rigid, black-and-white categories.

*Afterword found on page XX

Stretch Out side the Comfort Zone

In his new update, Sean discusses the importance of broadening his experiences and stretching just outside his comfort zone. While doing his job as a newspaper reporter, he learned to become a better listener instead of fixating on his own problems. My mother had a good instinct on how to stretch me just outside my comfort zone, too. At age fifteen, I was afraid to visit my aunts ranch in Arizona, but when I got there, I loved it. Many parents have told me that when their teenager with autism successfully held a job that they liked, they really flourished.

Both Sean and I have had experiences that widened our perspectives. I have often said that travel is a great educator. When I began to visit new places, I discovered that it was a big world out there. I will never forget the trip I took to Australia in 1978. I had worked in the beef industry for only a few years, but it was shocking to discover that they had some beef plants that were better than ours. That trip truly broadened my horizons, and experiences like that are why I believe it is so important to get people who are on the autism spectrum to get out and do new things.

Sean also had a life-changing experience when he went on a bus trip for an American history course. He traveled to important sites in the deep South where people had fought for voting rights. This experience really changed his perspective. One of the most important things he learned was that many other people had much greater problems than his own. It was enlightening to learn from Seans update that as his experiences broadened, he became less concerned about small things in his life. He states, My brain was being trained to focus on other, much more important things. The more success he had, his anger and rigidity seemed to diminish. He was looking outward to the world instead of inward into himself.

It is important to always provide choices. Mother gave me a choice when I was afraid to try the new experience of visiting my aunts ranch: I could go all summer, or go for only one week. Providing choices is important. After I was kicked out of ninth grade for throwing a book at a girl who bullied me, my mother gave me a choice of three different special schools.

Sell Your Work

When the newspaper he worked for was closing, Sean was concerned about losing the news reporting job that he really loved. To impress the new editor, he did his very best work. I worked as a livestock editor for the Arizona Farmer Ranchman as one of my first jobs. After I successfully worked there for several years, the magazine was sold and we got a new boss. The new boss thought I was weird and was going to fire me. Fortunately, Susanthe lady who did the magazine layoutrecognized the warning signs. She told me to create a portfolio of all my work. When Jim, the new boss, saw all the impressive articles I had written, he gave me a raise. I have always told people on the spectrum to sell their skills at an interview. For me, an interview usually consisted of showing drawings and photos of completed projects. I made sure that when employers saw my portfolio, they were impressed.

There are many successful people who discover that they are on the autism spectrum later in life. Many of these people work important jobs, such as news reporters, computer programmers, scientists, skilled trade technicians, or accountants. Several of these people have told me that they may not have achieved their level of success if they had been diagnosed as a child. For them, and for Sean, these achievements were a strugglebut they were worth it. Sean writes that his anger and rigidity melted away.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency for parents to overprotect their child who has an autism diagnosis. What parents need to do is stretch their child just outside their comfort zone, but avoid throwing them in the deep end of the pool. A news reporting job or a quiet store, for example, would be a good first job. A chaotic, busy store during the holidays would be setting the individual up for failure. There is too much multitasking.

Seans life is an example of a person on the spectrum who has made a success of his life, and there is so much to be learned from his story.

Foreword

S ince our book was first published in 1992, my life has changed in ways I couldn't have anticipated. In the past ten years I've traveled the United States and Europe, speaking to many civic, church and social organizations about what it was like to have autism and to recover from it. Along the way I've become friends with many children with autism and their parents. Before the book came out I had never met anyone else with the disorder.

Shortly after the book's first release, Doug Biklin invited me to speak at Syracuse University. It was the first time I had ever given a presentation at a college. I was nervous, sensing that people would be scrutinizing my actions and words to see whether I was fully recovered as had I claimed. When I began to speak, though, I immediately felt comfortable and confident; the audience was more responsive and accepting than I could have imagined, and I felt as if I were talking to a large group of friends.