Tackling Autism

Published 11:10 am Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that nationally 1 in 150 children have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Parents whose children are diagnosed with Autism have to alter the way they raise their child.

Although there are symptoms that a child may exhibit with Autism, the symptoms vary from child to child. Most any parent that struggles with raising a child with Autism will note that the symptoms can sometimes vary dramatically.

One family in Pell City has learned to not only deal with raising an Autistic child, but has found that through sports, and despite of the Autism diagnoses, their child has matured into a typical 13-year-old.

When Christian Mathis was one-year-old, he started showing developmental problems and for the next several years his parents, Barbara and James, went from specialist to specialist trying to get the correct diagnosis for their son.

The first diagnosis for Christian came when he was four. Doctors said that he was severely mentally retarded. “You know, you go through a grieving process when they tell you that,” Barbara Mathis said. “They shove the papers at you and they leave the room. I went through a grieving process and then snapped out of it and said, ‘I know this child, and there is no way that he could be severely mentally retarded.’”

Christian’s parents started searching out more options and tests to find out what might be wrong with Christian. “I actually got more help from the board of education than I did the medical system back then,” Barbara Mathis said.

She had a chance encounter one evening while working at a furniture store when Dr. David Finn, the head of the Children’s Learning Department of Samford University, came in to shop for furniture for a new conference center.

“While he was finishing some paperwork he got a phone call from someone and I couldn’t help but hear his end of the conversation and it sounded like he was talking to someone who was with my child,” she said. “When he hung up I was crying and he asked why and I told him ‘That sounds like my child.’”

Dr. Finn gave Barbara Mathis a few phone numbers and told her to contact her local board of education and inform them that she had a child that was exhibiting signs of developmental delay. “As a young and inexperienced parent, I didn’t know those key terms and those terms got our foot in the door,” she said. “The school system did the testing and from there we were approved for services and the doctors did further testing.”

Christian was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS). “If you have Autism, that’s the good one to be diagnosed with,” Barbara Mathis said.

The Mathis’ learned with the PDDNOS diagnosis that Christian would be able to grow up with a higher rate of functional capabilities than other children who are diagnosed with other variations of Autism.

Over the years, the Mathis family struggled to find an outlet for Christian’s sometimes excited behavior.

When the Mathis family would go into stores, Christian would often throw tantrums and be disruptive to the point that other shoppers would offer their belt to his mother as a not-so-subtle way of telling her that her child was being a nuisance.

“We couldn’t go anywhere when he was a toddler,” Barbara Mathis said. “He was a danger to himself. He would run off. He was very active and I would play ball with him and he loved baseball. But he didn’t understand the rules.”

When he was seven-years-old, his parents decided to let Christian play on a baseball team. His mother told his coach that she would stay by Christian’s side in case he started to be a disruption to the team at practices or during games.

“He’s more of a visual learner,” Barbara Mathis said. “We had a very good team that year and the kids were great. He would sometimes have a meltdown because he only wanted to hit. If he didn’t hit the ball, his whole world would melt down. So, I would have to follow him along the fence until he got back to the dugout and he’d be able to have a breakdown there.”

She said that through his first year in baseball he was able to learn a structured routine that would come to help him as he grew older.

“Once he had that first year under his belt, he was ready to go his second year,” Barbara Mathis said. “After that we thought that maybe we could try football because the downtime in baseball was sometimes hard on him since he was so active.”

After two years of baseball, Christian started playing football. “He loved it,” his mother said. “We still stayed out there with him in case there were any issues, but he just thrived.”

When Christian started at Duran South Junior High School, James and Barbara Mathis had assumed that their son would stay there until he went into high school and not attend Duran North, but as his mother said “he wanted to go to the big school and play football.”

Barbara Mathis went to Duran North and soon Christian was enrolled. “They were just great and I went to coach Watson and explained his situation,” she said. “And these boys he’s been playing with now have been playing with him for years and they look up to him as a player.”

On the field, Christian’s teammates help him to stay focused by sometimes getting his attention when it is time to huddle up or get on the line before a play.

Kids with Christian’s type of Autism sometimes do not recognize that someone is trying to get their attention if they are immersed in an activity. Christian’s mother said, “You’ll see [his teammates] on the field and they’ll tap him on the shoulder or on his helmet to get his attention and get him in place. But they also look up to him because he’s such a good player. The other boys look out for him and he’s just one of their buddies. These are his friends and the guys he grew up with playing ball.”

When Christian suits up in the Pell City Junior High Panther uniform, his coach, Leonard Watson, said that he takes his role on the team very seriously.

“He does a good job out there,” Coach Watson said. “We’re real proud of him and we’re glad to have him on our team. He starts on guard for us, usually. He’s a real competitive kid and he loves to hit. He’s been one of our best offensive linemen thus far this year.”

“It feels great,” Christian said about playing football. “I’m just glad I can play on our team.” He plays both defense and offense for the Panther’s junior high squad.

Barbara Mathis said that with her son, sports have “encouraged his communication, it encouraged his behavior and this is what has helped him get where he is now.”

She said that Christian has been able to take on more of a workload now than he ever was able to do before and that his friends on the football team have helped him out a lot.

Christian’s mother talked about the frustrations of seeing children whose parents struggle with their child’s Autism diagnosis. “You hear so much on the news about parents getting the diagnosis with their young kids and I get the feeling that they may have been done the same way that we were in the early days and are left with no explanation of what to look out for,” she said. “It can kind of seem hopeless at first, but there is hope. These kids can do anything. I believe as a parent that you know your child better than anyone else. So you shouldn’t let anyone else limit their abilities. If you see something in them that they are interested in or a talent that they show, you should put more effort into that and you’ll get more out of it.”

There is hope in Alabama for parents whose children have been diagnosed with Autism. During the special session this spring, the State Legislature pushed through House Bill 150, sponsored by Rep. Cam Ward of (R-49), which created a statewide Autism council that will put all of the available organizations that help children and their families deal with Autism under one umbrella.

There are 10 state agencies that provide some sort of services for families with Autistic children, but they were not coordinated before the bill was passed.

Ward, whose daughter is diagnosed with Autism said, “I tell people this all the time: whatever works for the parents and the child is what works. Everyday I hear from another parent that said sports worked for their child or something else worked well for them. Whatever works, do it. From our end, you do a lot of therapies to help the child. But the most important thing is to make sure you start doing it early; but that’s not possible for everyone. So as a state we need to do everything we can to get the resources to these families. I think awareness is 99 percent of our battle. There are so many other disorders out there that people are aware of, but with Autism, people are not as aware. And that’s not only with public, but with lawmakers as well.”

Just last week, members of the upstart council had a town hall meeting in Huntsville where goals were set for the committees that are going to deal with getting more services and funds for children and their families who deal with Autism.