AFTER TREATMENT FROM

FOCUS ALTERNATIVE LEARNING CENTER

Canton, CT  860-693-8809

(This letter was written after Alex was on a panel of FOCUS kids presenting to parents and professionals at an ASCONN meeting)

3/24/05

Dear ASCONN Members,

          Thank you for inviting me to the Autism Society meeting. It was the first time I was ever on the FOCUS panel. I was a bit nervous, but I had a fun time talking to people. All the people were great, so it was one of the best nights of my life! I hope I'll be able to be on the panel again. You were all helpful in understanding autism.      

           I've been a kid with autism all my life, so I know all about autism. I like to help other people to understand autism. It's hard to be a kid with autism when people don't understand you. It's easier, and more fun to have autism when people can understand you. That's why I like to go to FOCUS. People there understand my autism. When I said having autism is boring, I meant when people don't understand you. Sometimes, I call those times autism-mania. People don't understand why I take everything literally. Now that I've been around for eleven years, I'm starting to understand sarcasm and jokes.       

If your children haven't been around for that long, there are a lot of things they don't know yet. You have to teach them. FOCUS helps kids learn about social skills. Parents help kids learn about social skills, too. It's important for people to understand autistic kids, so they can teach them. It's impossible to know everything, because you're never too old to learn. I hope you learned something from the FOCUS panel.

Thank you again for listening to our panel. I enjoyed being on the panel. Mom and I couldn't believe I stayed in the room so long! It's hard for me to sit still, but I tried hard at the meeting. It was the kind of meeting I like, because you are all nice people. I hope I can come to your meeting again.

                                                          Your friend,

                                                          Alex (age 11)

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