Thriving with autism

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 12th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: thriving with autism.

At least one of every 100 Americans has been diagnosed with autism. It’s a neurological disorder that can affect a person’s social interaction and communication. People with autism might move, learn, or pay attention differently because of the way their brains process the environment.

REICHARD: Getting that diagnosis is difficult and can feel isolating. But it can bring the help someone needs along with a reminder of who made them. Here’s WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis.

AUDIO: [Mall]

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: It’s closing time at the Waurn Ponds mall near Geelong, Australia.

Target employees roll down a massive garage-style door. They lock away plastic mannequins sporting new spring styles in this Land Down Under. But even though it’s closing time, a small crowd is gathering in the echoey chambers of the mall. Parents, grandparents, and children sit in rows of folding chairs and seating pilfered from the food court around the corner. They’re waiting to meet Chloé Hayden at her first book signing.

Chloé Hayden is only 25. But she’s already a bestselling author and is starring in a new Netflix series. The world looks rosy…now. But growing up was hard—for her and her parents.

CHLOÉ: To my parents, I was always just nicknamed ‘their quirky little kid.’... From a really, really young age, I remember knowing that I was different. And I didn’t know what that different was…

While other kids at school built things with Legos, Hayden organized them by color. The Lost and Found bin at school was mostly full of her stuff. At age 13, psychologists ran her through a series of tests. She and her mom left the office with a large handbook and her mom in tears.

CHLOÉ: And when you’re 13 years old, and your mom is crying, you feel like the entire world is ending.

She asked her mom if she was dying. No, she said. Hadyen had been diagnosed with autism.

CHLOÉ: She was crying because it had taken so long to have an understanding as to why there was something that was different about me and how her and my dad could better help me.

Her own Google search dredged up articles that painted autism as a nightmare. Symptoms like seizures, language issues, head banging, biting. Hayden found the stereotypes differed from her own experience.

CHLOÉ: Especially back then when they think of autism they think of a young boy that is nonverbal, sitting in a corner, and unable to interact.

Hayden started a blog, wanting to find someone else like her. She found thousands.

CHLOÉ: It wasn’t until I saw other young people that were going through the same thing that I did in my childhood that I started to realize, no one is speaking up for us.

She started making YouTube videos about her experience. Those videos led to speaking opportunities. She landed a role as an autistic character in a new Netflix series. While we can’t recommend watching the series, for Hayden it’s a dream come true.

Then an editor asked if Hayden would write a book. She did. It’s called “Different, Not Less.”

CHLOÉ: This book is for 13-year-old me who was Googling things having no idea what it meant…So this book is for the young people that have just gotten a diagnosis and having no idea what it means for them. It’s for their parents. It’s for my teachers. I wish my teachers had this book…

And it’s this book that has drawn so many hungry for help on their own journey with autism.

BOOK SIGNING: Thank you so much! You are an inspiration to all of us.

Sixteen year old Charlotte and her mom wait in line to have their book signed.

CHARLOTTE: I’m also autistic. And she kind of gave me the confidence to say that I’m autistic, in a way, because I didn’t like it when I was first diagnosed when I was 12 or 11.

Her school psychologist mom Laura admits the journey has been hard. But now her daughter educates other kids about her experience.

LAURA: She came to my school and spoke to some children, some of the classrooms…and spoke to them about mental health and what it’s like to have autism and to be diagnosed with autism…

Judith Popping has an autistic son who didn’t fit well in schools. His behavior got him kicked out by age 7.

POPPING: People primarily look at behavior. And it’s so not about behavior. The behavior is a symptom of the experience. And what you need to do is dig beneath the behavior and say, “What’s causing this?”...

Knowing when to discipline an autistic child is difficult.

POPPING: They’re not sinless, you know. So I get that. I guess the parents would, would know the best through close observation of the child. I mean, this has been a long journey for us….Of course, you know, there are times when there’s naughty behavior. It’s a hard call…

Many people offered her advice, websites, diets to try, and books on discipline when her son was young. But there was one thing she wanted more of.

POPPING: What you need from others…Maybe I should just speak for myself. But I think just understanding.

Having an autistic son has made her reconsider her understanding about the kingdom of God.

POPPING: I think about things like the passage that talks about the presentable parts and the less presentable parts.

That’s the section from First Corinthians 12 about the parts of the body. She used to think of the presentable parts as the people who had it all together and visibly contributed to the church.

POPPING: And it’s challenged me to think. Maybe I’ve got that the wrong way around in God’s topsy-turvy economy and kingdom values, that it’s actually the people who seem to be the least presentable that actually are the most presentable.

She says the beauty of disability is that it gives us the opportunity to rethink our views.

POPPING: They’re doing it tough; we do it easy. They are the ones who are living out the whole idea of suffering before glory right here…

Chloé Hayden’s book title points out that someone with autism is different, but not any less of a person.

CHLOÉ: I think my favorite tip is probably understand that who you are is exactly who you’re supposed to be, keep going because you are the only you, and you are you for a reason, and you’re going to do incredible things by being here.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

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