Several weeks back (boy, the series of viruses that have hit my house recently have really got me behind!), a reader forwarded me an article on autism secrets for parents. The article was posted by Autism Diva (a blogger I ought to have visited by now, but in my perpetual state of overwhelmedness, haven't -- sigh!) at The Wrong Planet (an online community for people with Asperger's where I have been known to lurk in the shadows, learning).The whole article is worth a read, but the part that really struck me was this: "The idea of 'critical periods' or 'brief windows of time' during which you can teach your child something, has been exaggerated and oversold." Now, I know that Autism Diva was talking about autistic children here, but I'd say the same holds true of all children.
Before my son was born, I collected all of these factoids about child development: how the ages between birth and three years old are critical to a child's development, how a child loses the ability to distinguish the unique sounds of other languages before the age of one, how neural pathways that are never exercised in infanthood are never created. And I felt this huge sense of urgency knowing that little brain was growing and changing and making connections in ways it never would again. Why didn't I speak another language? My kids would never learn to say a Spanish "R!" Who knows what else I was depriving them of?
When my son was an infant, the topic most on my mind was sleep: namely, how little I was getting. So, I looked to the sleep "experts," all those parenting books that are supposed to have all the answers, and some of them contained alarming information. I was told that in order to ensure "good sleep habits" I would have to act and act quickly, because soon the window for dealing with sleep issues would be forever closed, and this and all future children would be sleeping in the bed with me, waking me every few hours until they went to college. Thank goodness I acted on that advice and... Oh wait. I didn't.
I learned that I could do all the work I wanted on the sleep of a six month old but teething, colds, developmental leaps, a move to a new house, a vacation, a new bed, the birth of a sibling, a scary story, a new school, a visit from Grandma, a babysitter, a holiday, a storm, nightmares, anything and everything could disrupt sleep patterns and send us all right back to the vast wasteland of Sleep Deprivation. There was no magical window of time during which my children had to learn to sleep through the night (or sleep in their own beds) or risk never acquiring the ability to do so. Each of my children now spends most nights from bedtime until morning asleep in their own beds. Each learned to do it at a different time, in different ways. Each has relearned this particular skill again and again.
And as for the Spanish R my children will never learn? So they'll have an accent. So it will take more time to learn. The window for distinguishing those sounds may be gone, but the window for learning to speak another language never closes.
Last week, I mused about some of the early signs of autism. And if you have heard much at all about autism, you have probably heard about how crucial "early intervention" is. The sooner we know about autism the better, because we can start those kids in therapy, right? Without early intervention there is (cue ominous music) no hope! But I'll tell you a secret to add to Autism Diva's: you know who early detection benefited most? Me! My son is learning and changing and growing at this amazing rate. He makes learning look easy. Now my 40-ish brain can learn, because I'm telling you that it's always possible to learn, but I'm not half as quick as he is. The real benefit in early detection was to give me that much more time to learn about autism, to learn how to advocate for my son with the school system, to learn how to be the best mama to him I can be.
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