Sheila Stewart - The Hidden Child: Kids with Autism

The Hidden Child

Kids with Autism

Kids with Special Needs

Seeing with Your Fingers: Kids with Blindness and Visual Impairment

Listening with Your Eyes: Kids Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

My Name Is Not Slow: Kids with Intellectual Disabilities

Sick All the Time: Kids with Chronic Illness

Somethings Wrong! Kids with Emotional Disturbance

Speed Racer: Kids with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder

Finding My Voice: Kids with Speech Impairment

I Can Do It! Kids with Physical Challenges

The Hidden Child: Kids with Autism

Whats Wrong with My Brain? Kids with Brain Injury

Why Cant I Learn Like Everyone Else? Kids with Learning Disabilities

The Hidden Child

Kids with Autism

by Sheila Stewart and Camden Flath

Copyright 2011 by Mason Crest Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

MASON CREST PUBLISHERS INC.
370 Reed Road
Broomall, Pennsylvania 19008
(866)MCP-BOOK (toll free)
www.masoncrest.com

First Printing
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN (set) 978-1-4222-1727-6 ISBN (pbk set) 978-1-4222-1918-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stewart, Sheila, 1975

The hidden child: kids with autism / by Sheila Stewart and Camden Flath.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4222-1724-5 ISBN (pbk) 978-1-4222-1927-0

1. Autism in childrenJuvenile literature. I. Flath, Camden, 1987 II. Title.

RJ506.A9S743 2010

618.9285882dc22

2010007064

Produced by Harding House Publishing Service, Inc.
www.hardinghousepages.com
Design by MK Bassett-Harvey.
Cover design by Torque Advertising Design.
Printed in the USA by Bang Printing.

Photo Credits
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic: fallenangel_brokenwings: p. 32; Fotolia: Arcurs, Yuri: p. 36; GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2: Vickers, Tim: p. 27; United States Army: pp. 30, 38, 41, 43.

The creators of this book have made every effort to provide accurate information, but it should not be used as a substitute for the help and services of trained professionals.

Introduction

To the Teacher

Kids with Special Needs provides a unique forum for demystifying a wide variety of childhood medical and developmental disabilities. Written to captivate an elementary-level audience, the books bring to life the challenges and triumphs experienced by children with common chronic conditions such as hearing loss, intellectual disability, physical differences, and speech difficulties. The topics are addressed frankly through a blend of fiction and fact.

This series is particularly important today as the number of children with special needs is on the rise. Over the last two decades, advances in pediatric medical techniques have allowed children who have chronic illnesses and disabilities to live longer, more functional lives. At the same time, IDEA, a federal law, guarantees their rights to equal educational opportunities. As a result, these children represent an increasingly visible part of North American population in all aspects of daily life. Students are exposed to peers with special needs in their classrooms, through extracurricular activities, and in the community. Often, young people have misperceptions and unanswered questions about a childs disabilitiesand more important, his or her abilities. Many times, there is no vehicle for talking about these complex issues in a comfortable manner.

This series will encourage further conversation about these issues. Most important, the series promotes a greater comfort for its readers as they live, play, and study side by side with these children who have medical and developmental differenceskids with special needs.

Dr. Carolyn Bridgemohan
Boston Pediatric Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Dog man coming today.

Daniel was excited. He had been counting the days until the man with the search-and-rescue dogs came to talk to his school.

He bounced in the backseat of the car. Dog man coming, he said. Dog man coming.

Sit still, Daniel! Mama said. She didnt like Daniel to bounce while she was driving.

James, Daniels twin, reached over and put his hand on Daniels arm. James always made Daniel feel calmer and better. Daniel thought that was because James had hugged him and comforted him even before they were born.

People said he and James were identical, but Daniel didnt know why. Obviously, James was James and he was Daniel. Nobody ever seemed to get them confused either. James said that was because Daniel had autism and James didnt, but Daniel didnt know if that was really it. It wasnt like people could see his autism. It was inside his head, wasnt it?

Dog man, Daniel whispered, holding himself very stiff so he didnt bounce. Dog man, dog man, dog man.

He loved dogs more than anything else in the world. (Except for James, of course.) Every day, after school, he went to the Humane Society and helped take care of the dogs. The people who owned the apartment where he and James and Mama lived wouldnt let them have a dog of their own. He hoped the dog man would bring a lot of dogs with him to school.

Daniels classroom was noisy that morning. He hated noise. Mama always drove him and James to school, because he hated the noise on the school bus, but there was nothing she could do about the noise in the classroom. He wished James was in his class, but James was in another fifth-grade room across the hall.

Instead of sitting at his desk, Daniel went to his safe spot. Mrs. King the teacher and Mr. Arredondo the aide had made the safe spot just for him. They had told him he could go there whenever he felt anxious and worried. The safe spot was in the very back corner of the room, behind a bookshelf. It had a pillow to sit on and a picture of a border collie on the wall. Daniel sat on the pillow and put his hands over his ears so he couldnt hear the noise outside his safe spot. He hummed to make the noise go away even more, and he rocked his body while he looked at the border collie.

He saw Mr. Arredondos shadow before he saw Mr. Arredondo, so Daniel took his hands away from his ears. Mr. Arredondo didnt touch him. He had done that once, and Daniel had started to scream. Daniel didnt like to be touched. Except by James and Mama.

Too loud in here for you, buddy? Mr. Arredondo asked.

Daniel didnt think he needed to answer that. Dog man coming, he said.

Yep, thats right. Were going to do some math and then start lining up for the assembly.

Daniel couldnt wait.

Math was sometimes hard for Daniel. The numbers didnt always seem to mean anything. The other students could take the numbers and do things to them and not care whether they meant anything or not. At least, thats what it seemed like to Daniel. James said the numbers did mean things, but Daniel always wanted to know what they meant. No one could explain them to him.

Today, the class was working on finding the area of rectangles. They had studied that the year before, too, but Daniel hadnt understood it. He knew he had to measure the short side and the long side of the rectangle and then multiply the two numbers together, but he didnt know why. He thought about the word area. Area meant a place, like when Mama said his aunts and uncles lived in the area around Seoul, Korea. But he didnt know what that had to do with measuring the sides of rectangles.