I once read that one third of children with Autism lose skills during their preschool ages. While the regressions usually centered around speech, they also affect social and play skills.
Brantley fell in that one third. And man have I beat myself up over it. It was heartbreaking to watch the regressions take hold and I’ve never felt so helpless as I did watching my sweet little boy lose skills he worked so hard to achieve. I questioned God on why, I’ve wondered over and over if I could have done some something to stop them and I searched high and low for anything that could help my sweet little boy.
It’s been years since Brantley’s regressions started, and we still have not found the key to help him regain most of those skills.
I often find myself looking back on videos of Brantley speaking, playing and feeding himself. With each video I smile at how sweet he is, but I also feel my heart break just a little with each second I watch. I miss how he used to grip a paint brush so tightly while painting his handsome little face like the canvas I laid out for him. I miss the the sweet sound of his raspy little voice when he would say “mom”. I love how he smacked his lips around the spoon he so carefully moved to his mouth.
Regressions mean that our sweet little boy can no longer do many of these tasks. But I can’t focus on that. I try to remember how much more he can do now.
He no longer speaks those occasional words out loud but he has learnt to speak without saying a word. His candid facial expressions convey everything he needs to tell us. I recall one of his second grade teachers telling me that Brantley could offend him with his looks, this comment made me laugh so hard because I knew full well which facial expression he would be offended by. Brantley had recently mastered a look which screamed “you are an idiot” and it was a look that could not be mistaken for anything else.
That look is sadly similar to the look Brantley gets while eating in public. While he used to feed himself very carefully he now struggles to hold utensils of any kind. This means there is no-longer anything careful about his feeding, in- fact it is quite the site to see. His arms flap beautifully while food flies in each direction and grunts and squeals erupt from within. Strangers stare in shock, but all I see is beauty in my wild boys manners. He has adapted to find a way to feed himself. It is not proper and it is not clean but it is Brantley. He found a way to give himself the food he needs to fuel his energetic body and that is something to be proud of.
While it is was painful for me to watch the skills Brantley had slip away, and we will always work toward regaining them, they ultimately don’t matter. He has compensated for them and has adapted to fit his needs. He may not communicate or eat in a traditional manner but he does both tasks in the way that works for him and that is a beautiful thing.
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