Autistically Awesome

[Shirley] When my daughter was very young, she attended a daycare who had an amazing owner, Lucy. She cared for my daughter from 18 months until she looked awkwardly out of place amongst the new toddlers. Anyway, I remember one year a new face had come to Lucy's happy band of children, a small little boy, with big brown eyes, who would sit in corner by himself, just rocking. Everyday I'd see this beautiful child sitting in the same chair rocking, never answering when if you said 'Hi' -- just rocking. I later learned from Lucy that she had voiced her concerns to the boy's mother, who was adamant that there was nothing wrong him, he was just sensitive to noise, you see she was an opera singer, and apparantly as soon as she opened her mouth, it would send her son in fits of rage, inaudible screaming until she stopped singing. For some reason I found this funny having met the mother's cold shoulder on more than one occasion, which only warmed me up to the little boy more, despite his oblivion to my presence. Lucy already had an autistic child in her midst and knew the signs. So when the special case worker came to work with that case, Lucy would make sure the boy was in the same room. Unfortunately, when the boy's mother found out about this, she removed her son from Lucy day care. Where I'm going with all this... Last week I saw a documentary on BBC-America about an autistic man named Stephen Wiltshire. As a child, Stephen was mute and did not relate to other human beings. Aged three, he was diagnosed as autistic. He had no language, uncontrolled tantrums and lived entirely in his own world. By age of five, he was sent to a school for children with special needs, where it was noticed that the only pastime he enjoyed was drawing. Fast forward, today he is being called the Human Camera as he has the ability to look at building, landscape of buildings for a few minutes and then recreate it with such accuracy it makes some of the top architects of the world swooooon. Check out his work on www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk and/or Utube. I was in awe of this young man's ability and how this gift has opened my eyes to the misunderstood world of autism. Also, the possibilities that might have awaited the little boy at Lucy's day care had he been given a chance.