Helping Find Missing Autistics

I remember Damien getting lost once. He left his school and never made it home. It was raining. An hour after school let out, we found him wandering down a street that we did not even live close to oblivious that he was lost or that an hour had past. He was soaked and said, "I was sure home was around here somewhere." We only live about four blocks from the school. Although he is now 19 years old and is capable of driving. He still tends to lose his way from time to time. I am grateful that my friend, Denise, donated a GPS device for Damien to help him find his way.

Missing Autism Alerts

Class of 2014

My son, Damien Brown graduated today. Damien is a young man with autism, who was considered low-functioning when he was first diagnosed. Damien was fully special education when he started middle school at Clack. By the time he began Cooper High School, he was in all regular education classes with special ed supports. Damien graduated as a Texas Scholar and with AP credits. Damien is the editor of the Cooper Crest and a member of the Creative Writing Club. Damien plans on going on to college to become a psychologist. Damien has autism, but autism has never had him.

Face of Autism

Original Photography by ©Pamela N. Brown

Calamity

This is Damien's latest triumph. Damien, with two other classmates, wrote and acted out a play as a project for Theater Arts I. For a child with autism, who did not know and understand how to emote, he does significantly well in this little play due to his studies in Theater Arts. Enjoy!

UIL Journalism

Damien is off to his first UIL competition. He was approached by the school and asked to represent Cooper in journalism (editorial writing and headline writing). He has been studying so hard all week and seemed a bit nervous this morning. I don't know if it was because of the competition or the storm we had this morning. I am so proud that Damien is showing the world that a special education student can excel just as a typical student can. By the way, he's being placed in another AP course next year. Way to go, Bub, I'm really proud.

Bully Teacher

I am so angry with the school because a teacher has been exiling Damien from the classroom WITHOUT a pass due to another student saying, “He makes me uncomfortable.” His IEP specifically states that if he gets stressed, the teachers are supposed to either make concessions for him as providing him a place to pace or if the students complain, send him to content mastery, so he can pace there.

Instead, she sends him out of the classroom without a pass leaving him vulnerable to getting detention for being out of the classroom without a pass. She violated the IEP, therefore, she broke the law. I feel this would have been the perfect opportunity to have Damien teach the students in the class about autism.

Instead, she backed up the thoughts that there is something wrong with children with autism, and they are something to be scared of. I feel that the repercussions of the media’s Sandy Hook lashout toward people with autism has finally reared its ugly head. I was expecting to see it soon, but I did not think it would be from a bully teacher.

Damien begged me not to call the school and refused to tell me which teacher it was. I respected his wishes and did not call for a couple of days, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that they are just bullying Damien for being himself, no other reason. I never believed a teacher would back up a bully.

We have worked far too hard to have Damien accepted by his peers. He has taken himself from being considered low functioning to now being considered high functioning. He has advocated for himself time and time again, but because he likes this teacher, he is afraid to say anything. Now, this teacher has undone 15 1/2 years of work. I will not stand for it.

That other student will continue to marginalize, bully, and be frightened of children with autism. I will not stand for that.  It is a disservice to both Damien and this other child to treat Damien as something to be afraid of.

I called the special education counselor, and she assured me that this will be remedied as soon as possible. It better be.

Damienism #49

"You know. When I was in kindergarten, I hated writing to celebrities and waiting for an answer. I wrote to George Washington and never got a letter back."

~ Damien A. Brown

School Lunches & Bullying

Yesterday, Damien let me know that he has not been eating at school because the new rules are that they are to eat outside. I sent an email to Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx, the counselor for the SPED Department, about it.

Ms. Xxxxxxxx,

It has come to my attention that Damien has not been eating at school anymore. He has been going through the day without lunch. I asked him why, and he has told me that he is not able to get away from the crowd  and cannot eat when he is in a crowded area. When he was in Xxxxx [middle school], Damien was given preferential seating at lunch for the same reason. We took that out of his IEP due to him being able to choose where he sits for lunch. Now, because of the new rule, he can no longer to choose to sit away from the crowd at the school. The result is him coming home with a headache and starving. It is beginning to affect his ability to concentrate, and I am afraid that his education is going to begin to suffer as well. He has told me that he is not the only student that has stopped eating for the same reason. However, my concern is for my child and his well-being. Ms. Xxxxxxxx, we do not have the monetary funds to send Damien's lunch to school with him on a daily basis as due to my present unemployment. I do feel that the additional stress on Damien is negatively affecting him. Is there anyway that he can begin to eat lunch outside again to eleviate his stress level? He has used this time to de-stress and pace since he has gone to school at Xxxxxx. I have talked to some of the teachers at Xxxxxx that know Damien, and they have told me about his daily pace (de-stress) sessions. Please help him with this issue.

Thank you,

Pamela N. Brown

Today, I received the following response:

Mrs. Brown,

I was unaware that Damien was not eating.  Thank you for letting me know. I contacted Ms. Xxxxx [the principal] and she has agreed to allow Damien to eat outside. She will let the Associates be aware and allow him to eat outside.

Tell Damien to come see me if there is ever a problem and I will help correct it.

Have a great day.

Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx
Special Education Counselor  
Xxxxxx High School
(XXX) XXX-XXXX ext. XXXX

Also, Damien told me that Ms. Xxxxx [the principal] spoke to him, and reassured him that he can eat outside as needed. I am so glad when the faculty at the school address our issues and agree that the main objective of us all is for Damien to have the opportunity to get the education that he deserves.

On a different note, I have learned that Damien is still being bullied at school. As I mentioned in the above email to Damien's counselor, Damien uses lunch as an opportunity to de-stress. As a child with autism, the method is seen in stimming rituals. Damien's is to walk in a circle, specifically, at school, it is around one of the trees at school. He has been pacing around this tree since he was a freshman in high school.

One of my friends that I went to university with is a special education teacher at the school. She told me that during Damien's freshman year, she noticed he was circling that tree every day at lunch. She said that the tree had grass around it, but by the end of the first semester, Damien had worn the grass away. She went on to tell me that by the end of Damien's freshman year, there was a small trench around the tree, and by the end of his sophomore year, the trench had grown in depth. She said that she was not a least bit surprised to see Damien circling the tree at the beginning of this, his junior, year.

My friend was not the only person to notice this, as we all know, a routine is easily recognized by observers. One day, a group of football players circled the tree and started pushing Damien, laughing at him for circling the tree, and calling him "retard." One of these boys' teammates, approached the group and told them, "Stop it. That is not cool. Damien is a nice guy and far from being retarded. He is the smartest kid I know, a lot smarter than all of you."

Damien was more excited that this classmate of his that he has developed a relationship with over the years took up for him than he was upset about being bullied or picked on, but my heart is still broken over the way people continually treat my son. Damien did say that one of the boys approached him the next day and told him, "I'm sorry I was so mean to you yesterday. I feel just awful about the way I treated you, and there is no excuse for the way I acted. I have learned not to judge people because they are different." Now, Damien does not only have one person to take up for him, he has two. According to Damien, no one has treated him that way since.

Boy and His Cat

Original Photography by ©Pamela N. Brown

Damienism #46

The boys are cracking me up. Dylan is trying to teach Damien how to speak properly. He is making Damien say all kinds of words with v in them and trying to get Damien to say /v/ instead of /f/. And, he's also making Damien say words that start with h since Damien always drops the h in words. The funny thing is that Damien keeps saying, "You know what I am trying to say, so what does it matter?"

Dylan replied, "It matters when you go into a job interview. If you mispronounce everything, they will not know how smart you are." What Dylan does not understand is that in over more than ten years of speech therapy, Damien was discharged because he is understandable, not because he can speak perfect.

I wonder. Maybe, Dylan is right, and he can accomplish what many speech therapists could not. He plans on working with Damien for hours every day until Damien gets it right. Hmmm....

...Me: "I think he's got it. I think he's got it."
Damien: "Twelve, huge, hairy humans have hairy faces."
Me: "By George, he's got it. By George, he's got it!"

... Then I proceeded to show the boys this:

Now, they are dancing together, like the professor and Eliza.

Damien's Commercial

Damien won a local competition with the chance to go on an all expense paid trip to Beaumont as a special guest to Gator Country. When we got there, Gary and Kent, the stars of Gator 911, took us on a tour of the facilities, allowed Damien and Dylan to hold the reptiles for their show, took us on a tour of the bayou, and took us to tour the local radio station. At the station, Damien met all of the DJ's and the marketing Director. Gary and Kent were preparing to tape a commercial and invited us to watch the taping. Gary decided that it would be a great idea to allow Damien to tape a line for the commercial. After only three takes, Damien got it down. Here are the results. The photos on the video are from the trip.

Bullying in Headstart

Originally posted on April 16, 2001

"Damien got his hand smashed with a shovel at school!

I have had many talks with the teacher about Damien being picked on at school. I do realize that he is different and may bring some of this on himself. However, I am tired of him getting beat up on a daily basis. He is only five years old and in Headstart! I went to the principal's office this morning and explained to her what is going on. I told her that I DO NOT send my child to school to be unsupervised. I just want him to be safe!

Damien has run off from school twice and nobody noticed! Enough is enough. I have been up there twice during recess to look for him.

Damien had an appointment, so I went to pick him up. The teachers were all in a little huddle talking and did not know where he was. I had to go find him. This was one of the times he was missing. He was outside of the fence looking for ladybugs.

Damien has stated to me that every time he gets hurt, it is on the playground. He says he tells the teacher, but she does nothing. When I picked him up on Friday, his finger was very swollen, black, and infected. He has been on anti-biotics every since. The teacher thought that since he did not cry, it was not serious. I have told her numerous times that he doesn't cry, even when he is hurt. He hasn't cried in a very, very long time.

When I arrived to pick the kids up from school, the teachers seemed upset with me for talking to the principal. What else was I supposed to do? They are obviously not doing any thing about it."

Over the years, we have had to deal with consistent bullying like this. What breaks my heart is that it has been going on since Damien first started school. We are currently in Damien's thirteenth year of school, and the bullying has not stopped. For a matter of fact, Damien was recently targeted by a child with firecrackers that were thrown at his head, and he has had milk thrown on him after teachers learned that the girls (yes, I said girls) in his Bible class had set Damien up to be kicked out of the class. They told him to tell the teacher a dirty joke. He did not understand or recognize the words in the joke, so he told the teacher the joke. It was after Damien was suspended that the truth came out, and the mark was removed from his permanent record.

Well, I hate that the bullying has not stopped back. It did stop once, and that is when he was in middle school. Damien became so angry from being bullied in gym that he punched the locker. When he did, the locker dented. Although the boys did not bully Damien and Dylan for the remainder of the year, I found myself at the end of another heated discussion with the principal, who warned me that next time he will make us pay for a new locker. I responded that I feel I am not responsible for the damage to the locker, that the principal, himself, was responsible. I told him that I am sick and tired of him telling me, "If we do something about the bullying, the bullying will just get worse." This was not the first time that we heard this. We had also heard it from the three different elementary schools that my boys attended.

Unfortunately, the bullying has extended over the years to Dylan as well. It has put a strain on the relationship between the two brothers. Dylan has difficulty with Damien's foibles, and he does get embarrassed from time to time. Sometimes, I have to remind him that the behaviors stem from Damien's autism, and I also help him recognize how Damien has grown and matured over the years.

I do agree with Dylan that it is not fair that people pick on him because his brother is non-typical. Being the sibling of an non-typical sister myself, I can totally relate to how Dylan feels. But, as a mother of a child with autism, I do not feel it is fair that Damien is treated the way that he is either, nor is it fair to DJ and me.

Bullying affects all of us, and we all have to remember that no matter how difficult it is for us, we have no clue as to how it effects Damien. It is difficult for him, especially when he realizes that he was set up or taken advantage of. With that being said, I am very proud that Damien has decided that he is okay with his eccentricities and has decided that he will be himself now and try not to worry about what other people think of him.

Seizures

Many people do not realize that most children with autism may also have a seizure disorder. Back when we first moved to Texas, we had difficulty getting professionals to diagnose Damien's autism. Though he had been diagnosed at 16 months of age in Indiana, the diagnosis was not accepted in Texas. Therefore, we had to go through all of Damien's testing all over again. I guess the professionals in Texas thought, at the time, that autism does not cross state lines with the child.

Actually, after going to school, I realize what was going on. Diagnoses through the school districts do change crossing state lines. Different tests are done as determined by the state's education agency. Furthermore, the ages as to which the diagnoses can be given change. Because Damien was younger than seven years of age, the state would not recognize his autism. Therefore, the doctors in the state were reluctant to give us the diagnosis we had begun with. Now, that autism is on the rise, and we have become aware that early diagnosis is key, the rules have changed.

It was while we were going through these tests, that we discovered Damien's seizure disorder. Below are the posts from when we first learned of Damien's petit-mal epilepsy. They range from May 10, 2001 to June 14, 2001.

May 10, 2001
I had Damien at his counselor's office just a few minutes ago. Damien came in while we were talking and kind of zoned out. The counselor tried to get his attention, but couldn't. Damien all of the sudden got up like nothing ever happened, but he was wet. The counselor thinks he may have had a petit-mal seizure. We got Damien a doctor’s appointment set up for 10:30 in the morning.

May 12, 2001
At Damien's doctor's appointment yesterday, we found out that he did have a seizure. The doctor asked how long he has been staring of into space like that. I told him that he has every since he was an infant. He asked me why I did not inform him of this. I told him that I told Damien's previous doctors and they told me it was just Damien's way of tuning me out. They said it was not anything serious. The doctor thinks now that everything seems to be tied in together. He said that the memory loss, wetting, and aggressiveness might be very well caused by whatever is causing the seizures. The doctor seems to think now that Damien may not have Asperger's Disorder, ADHD or COBPD. That is kind of a relief, but also kind of scary to since we don't know what is causing this.

When Damien was a baby, I noticed that he would stare off into space and then just come back. He only did this once, maybe twice a month. Then in late September of 1997 Damien had a high fever which caused a Grand Mal seizure. Then it became more frequent to where it was every week, then every day. Now, since March, it has been more than once a day. He is up to doing this four or five times a day that we have noticed, maybe more. Apparently, everything has begun to progress at a very fast rate, and most likely will not slow down or stop progressing.

The doctor has scheduled a MRI and EEG for May 17, 2001 at 8:45 a.m. The results for these tests won't be in until about 1 to 1 ½ weeks later. The doctor is got Damien in to see a neurologist sooner than July. He will be seeing him on May 15, 2001 at 3:00. I don't know how long it will take to get the results back on this testing.

May 15, 2001
Damien had his appointment with the neurologist today. The neurologist wants to do additional testing. He said he is almost certain that Damien is Autistic. He said, "However, it could be much worse." He said there are signs of other problems as well. He also said that there are petit-mal seizures, and they are not related to the other problems. He was totally disturbed by the thought that Damien's previous doctors did no testing whatsoever on Damien. We won't begin new medication until after the MRI and EEG scheduled on Thursday. I am so glad that I am finally getting answers.

May 17, 2001
Damien had his MRI and EEG done. We are still waiting for the results. During the EEG, the technician printed up a page just for Damien to show to everyone. He pulls it out and asks people, "Do you wanna see my brain?" He had four seizures yesterday. He seems so out of it. I cannot wait till we can find out what exactly is going on.

June 6, 2001
I have forgotten how difficult it is to care for Damien all day now that school is out. We finally have a definite diagnosis for him. He has PDDNOS (pervasive developmental disorder non-specific). In English, they don't really know what the hell is wrong with him. I have been doing quite a bit of research on all of his diagnosis's and found many similarities with these and Damien's behavior. I am going to use my next few blogs to relate to everyone my findings in my research.

June 11, 2001
We were told today that Damien has epilepsy. I am to take him to see his neurologist on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. I hope it is not too serious.

June 13, 2001
Every day becomes more and more of a struggle with Damien. I have not been able to get him to sleep until 2 or 3 in the morning for the last four nights. No, I am not letting him stay up that late. I start telling him to go to bed around 9:30 to 10:00. Around 10:30, I have to physically put him in his bed. He still gets up. This goes on for about an hour or sometimes two. We argue until I cannot argue about it any more. I just end up turning off all of the lights and going to bed myself. This is where our second argument begins. He has started wanting to sleep with me again. He has been wetting himself so much, I will not let him. The Desmopression does not seem to work anymore to stop this. When all is quite, Damien tries to sneak in bed with me. He finally told me that he is afraid that the bugs are going to eat him. I told him that we don't have bugs that eat people; just crickets and a few rollie pollies. I am beginning to fear for him. I am really nervous about where this all is heading. His fears are getting too great for me to even begin to understand. He often screams real loud in a shrill voice like he is being hurt badly. I feel the neighbors are beginning to think there is abuse in the home. Some have actually made comments. I wish there were more I could do for him. I am living my life on my last nerve. I am never going to give up on Damien. I just wish I could get him to help me understand. "I love you, Damien!"

June 14, 2001
Today was the big appointment at the neurologist. We haven't found anything out, but that he definitely does have epilepsy. He has been put on Tegratol and I had to buy him one of those medical alert necklaces. The neurologist did say that it was a problem, from what he can tell, from birth. He said that the neurons in his brain are like a computer that has been wired wrong. I am kind of sickened, however, that it has taken so long for the test results to come in.

The neurologist told me that the reason Damien has regressed and started forgetting things is due to each and every seizure causes damage to the brain. He said that Damien is consistently in seizure mode while he is sleeping. The neurologist seems to believe this is why Damien is wetting the bed every night. He said that since Damien wets himself each time he has a seizure, that is most likely what is going on. I just pray the medication helps.

Though the journal entries are from years ago, seizures had been persistent throughout Damien's life. We say that we have been seizure free since Damien was 12, but we cannot be certain if that is the case. What I can say is that Damien has been on seizure medication to help with his headaches and mood swings, so it is quite possible that the seizure disorder is still there. It is possible that the medication is just preventing the seizures. Whatever the case, I can say, for sure, that I am glad he is progressing, and the seizures are not preventing him from doing so.

Book Writer

How I long for control over a people
I could scream my dominance from a steeple

Write my laws from my deck
Inspire fear like Glenn Beck

I have no will to hurt men
But I can scare people from my den

Strike deals like the company Dell
And make life a living hell

No one will die this day
And the war will hit the hay

So presidents make room for this
Damien Brown the bookwriting terrorist

by Damien A. Brown © 08/20/2012

This is a poem that Damien wrote. I love it so much that I had to share.

My Name Is Damien

Damien's first self-advocacy video.

Middle Ground - Receiving Gifts

I am constantly wondering if it’s just Damien, or if this is just an autism thing. It often seems like parents of children with autism talk mainly about their children’s accomplishments, but very little seems to be said on actual challenges and difficulties that the child may be having.

Definitely, social skills suffer when a child has autism, but there are other things much deeper and much more serious that negatively affect social skills and may make the child become more ostracized than those who are typically developing. Though there are many with Damien, there is one that interests me greatly.

I’m talking about Damien not being able to find that middle ground. Everything to him is black and white, and the grey area does not exist. This has caused great difficulty in the Brown family household. It has had an effect that makes family gatherings and outings particularly difficult. Here’s how it all started:

You know how parents start teaching children from a young age how to be polite and try to curb rude behaviors in the process. That is exactly what we had been trying to do with Damien over a series of years. When Damien was four, we really started trying to get him to understand that it is rude to ask for everything in the store. We also tried to teach him that it is ruder to throw temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way. Like I said, for years we tried to drill some manners into the poor child.

Regrettably, what we have taught Damien has seemed to backfire. Now, he feels it is rude to even get a gift. He will tell people that he doesn’t want the gifts they give him, and he often refuses to order food in a restaurant because he doesn’t want anyone to spend money on him. He feels that it is “a waste of money” for others to spend money on him. For the last several years, holidays and birthdays have been miserable for all of us. Sadly, we have spent the last few years trying our hardest to teach Damien to accept gifts graciously.

We have been working on getting him to understand that his birthday is not “just another day” and “not something people should celebrate.” I told Damien that birthdays are the proof to the world that you have made it another year, and that the human body is so frail is more reason than enough to celebrate. I also explained to him that his birthday was not “just another day” to me because it is the best day I have ever had in my entire life. After being told I could not have children, I gave birth to him and then a year later I gave birth to Dylan, which both have made me very happy.

Unfortunately, his behavior is not limited to receiving gifts. Damien does not want any recognition for any of his accomplishments. He threw a fit because they gave him recognition at his school last week saying, “It wasn’t me that did anything. I was just doing what you and my teachers told me to do. If anyone deserves to be recognized, it’s them and you.”

We spent all afternoon discussing his negative behavior. I explained to him that he has accomplished much on his own without our help whatsoever. I taught him the meaning behind the parable, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” I made clear that his teachers and I only provide the tools. We only are able to put them in front of him, and he is the one who has to choose as to whether-or-not he uses those tools. I told him that his accomplishments are the result of all of his hard work throughout the years. I clarified that sure all of the therapists at West Texas Rehab and Argabright Communications, all of the teachers both regular education and special education, and I have played a part in the accomplishments, but it was his sheer determination that helped him to conquer the obstacles he has overcome.

I also explained to him when he gets nominated for an award or is given an award for something and he refuses the reward that he makes the person who has decided he is worthy to feel awful and insulted. Therefore, I am making him to write a letter of partial disclosure and full apologies. I told him he must tell them he is sorry for his actions and behaviors. I said he should also partially disclose the fact that he has autism, and though it is not an excuse, it is part of the reason he reacted in such a manner. I said that he must explain how proper social interaction is the biggest obstacle he has ever had before him, and how it is also the obstacle he has yet to overcome, but he is working on his social skills.

I am hoping that, this time, I have gotten through to him. So far, it seems that Damien has started listening. Damien did accept his gifts graciously yesterday and did not act as if he didn’t deserve the gifts or dinner. I think that realizing his actions weren’t making life better for us as he thought he was doing has helped him to know it’s okay to say thank you and enjoy being recognized for everything that he has accomplished. I am truly keeping my fingers crossed on this one and hoping it sticks.

I am interested in learning if any of you with children with autism have had similar difficulties and would love to hear your stories as well.

Inspiring Staff Writer

Damien is a staff writer for The Cooper Crest, his high school news paper. This is his third year working on the paper, and his articles have always been well written. However, none of them can compare to the article he most recently wrote. For those of you who don't know or have not figured it out yet, Damien is autistic. {I know that it is not politically correct to word the sentence that way, and I should say a teen with autism. However, Damien has educated me on that as well. He said, "You cannot take the autism out of me because it is part of me. I am autistic." So, please, do not take offense that I talk to my child and about my child in the way he wishes me to.}

Anyway, being autistic means, that we do not always see the emotions that fuel my child. He does not express himself in the way that most neuro-typical people, or as Damien puts it, humans do. That is why this article has touched me and brought tears to my eyes. For someone who cannot express his emotions through his voice and the words that he speaks, he writes with an eloquence that evokes emotions in the reader; and his written words give us a glimpse of the emotions welling deep inside Damien.

Here is his article:

"Assembly Was Inspiring

My impression of the assembly that former NFL player Keith Davis performed on Oct. 10 was that it was quite inspiring.

He made me realize just how low my self-esteem is. That is something that a lot of people in my life have brought to my attention, but it took a pep talk from my parent and a motivational speaker to allow me to realize it. Like he said, I had a bad first half. Definitely not as bad as some people, but a bad one nonetheless.

But Davis told us about our second half, that we shouldn't allow these bars to keep us from reaching our dreams, that we have great potential, as big as our dreams, and that we should fulfill them no matter how bad our first half was.

He told us we have a chance at a good second half as long as we bend the bar, like he did, and move forward, whether our bar was just the kids who bullied us, our drug-addicted mothers, our bad lifestyles, or being incarcerated all your life. Our second half is the only part of the game that matters, not our first half.

When he told us about his life, I'm sure it inspired many people, how he overcame his father dying, his mother becoming an alcoholic, and us just seeing the stage where he is now. He told us his bad first half, but we could see his great second half.

Just where he was and where he is now are not the same. I know that I'm better than the way I look at myself. The only reason I treat myself the way I do is because I don't feel like I'm worth anything. In retrospect, the assembly made me feel better about myself. I am better than what some people at school, and I, look at me as." (Damien Brown, The Cooper Crest, October 15, 2012, Volume 53, Number 1, Page 5)

As a mother reading how much my child is hurting because of the bullying he has endured, I had to fight back the tears this story brought to my eyes. My heart aches for my child every single day. I worry as most other parents do, but I feel sometimes I worry a little more about Damien. I worry that his self-esteem issues will keep him from excelling to the man that I know he can and should be. I work hard to encourage this wonderful child that I have been blessed with. His autism is not a curse, but his self-esteem is.

With that being said, I am very inspired by Damien. He does see his self-esteem as a curse, and he is working hard to overcome that barrier. He is now 'bending the bar' and continually fighting against everything that he has been told. Damien is taking my advice, and I am proud that he listens to that advice. "When they say you can't, you prove them wrong." Damien, I am sure your second half is going to be something that will inspire others.

Articles on autism and bullying:

School Bullies Prey on Children With Autism
Why Autistic Kids Make Easy Targets for School Bullies
Combating Bullying
Almost Half of Teens with Autism Bullied: Study

Face of Autism

Damien ~ Taken at The Science Spectrum ~ Lubbock, Texas

Ripped Pants

He is his father's son!!!! Damien OBVIOUSLY takes after his father. He believes that duct tape can fix anything. At work today, he ripped his pants crawling out of the prairie dog pit. He taped them back together, decided they looked goofy, and tried to make them stylish. I love this boy; he cracks me up.