Prognosis varies among autistic children

Fifteen-year-old Derrick Liddell wants to know what his future holds. He wants a driver's license, a job and his own apartment.

"I just tell him we'll have to talk about it," said his mother, Natosha Primer. "He wants so much to be independent."

Like all parents, mothers and fathers of autistic children must balance the push and pull between protecting their offspring and letting them go. Autism only intensifies that conflict.

"He's so kind. No one is a stranger to him," Primer said. "I want to know what he's thinking. I want to know what life is like for him."

Like nearly everything else associated with autism, long-term prognosis can vary among children.

Through the 1970s, many autistic people were labeled mentally retarded and institutionalized. Some autistic children are still institutionalized today, but the many success stories over the years have shattered the hopeless stigma that once surrounded the disorder.

Take Ella Farrow, for example.

At age 2, the Neelys Landing girl stopped talking. For five years, she didn't utter a word. After a variety of seemingly ineffective therapies and programs, her teachers were sure she'd never talk again.

Then, while walking past a kindergarten classroom one day, Ella looked up at her teacher and said, "Happy Valentine's Day."

Now 23 years old, Farrow graduated from Jackson High School and later attended Southeast Missouri State University for a year.

Then there's Taylor Crowe. He was diagnosed autistic at age 4 by a St. Louis physician who told his parents that their son should be institutionalized.

'Gifts and limitations'

"It's devastating, numbing to hear someone say that," said Taylor's father, Cape Girardeau orthodontist Dr. David Crowe. "If I had accepted that, Taylor probably would have been what that physician said he'd be. But I knew he was capable of so much more."

Today, 22-year-old Taylor is a student at the California Art Institute studying animation.

"Everyone has gifts and limitations. That's no different for someone who is autistic," David Crowe said. "You have to find their abilities, not their disabilities."

Cyndy Jones, nurse clinician and coordinator at the Center for Autism Disorders at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said parents go through a grieving process when they find out their child is autistic, denying the diagnosis, becoming angry about it and eventually accepting it.

"What we say to them is, lay foundations day by day and have no ceiling limit. Every day is a day of promise. Every day is a day of hope and potential," Jones said. "I've seen a lot of great things in our patients when the parents approach it with a positive attitude."

Farrow made quite an impression on her classmates in high school.

The girl who didn't speak for five years was voted "most friendly" in her graduating class. She was a member of the high school French club and even won several language contests.

She doesn't remember too much about the silent period of her life, but she can talk about what it's like to be autistic.

"People are what they are," Farrow said. "I don't think I'm superior or inferior, just different."

A message to get out

Sally Blankenship, Taylor Crowe's mother, said all autistic people have a message they're trying to get out.

"As a parent, you have to be a detective and try to figure out what that message is, even though it's frustrating," Blankenship said.

Blankenship said she once made the mistake of telling Taylor he would never be able to drive a car. Taylor set up lessons with a high school driver's education teacher and then consulted his parents about the prospect of driving again. In the end, he did receive his license.

"That was a lesson that I should never again stand in Taylor's way," Blankenship said. "I should never tell him, 'No, Taylor, I don't think you will do this.'"

David Crowe gives credit for his son's success to the therapy and support Taylor received growing up. Crowe says he never looked at Taylor as disabled, just inconvenienced.

"Sometimes the handicapped mindset is the most handicapping thing of all," Crowe said. "Taylor's living out his dream. How many of us can say that?"

cclark@semissourian.com

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