By Maia Chung
Quinn Garren James Smith is the last of my three sons. He was diagnosed with severe Autism at the age of 3 years old. We live in Kingston Jamaica in the Caribbean. He just turned 11 in May 2011. He attends the Adonijah Group of Schools in Kingston Jamaica, where an inclusionary programme, employed by the school’s administration has seen him being able to sit standardized tests for neuro-typical children, with the assistance of the school personnel and the permission of the Jamaican Ministry of Education.
He is doing outstandingly well. Quinn is being found to have genius abilities in Mathematics. In fact the school would like to have him enter a national math competition, as he has been found to be able to multiply three digit numbers by each other at a single glance; getting the answer right each time.
In fact the model of teaching and interventions at the Adonijah Group of schools, despite limited resources; have enabled him to be, since this term to be moved into the class with the ”normal” children, where he is being groomed to take the entrance test for a “regular” high school. He doesn’t speak spontaneously but will reply when spoken to or peeved at his brothers for bugging him.
When he was diagnosed with Autism, I thought my son would never fall in love, never get married, and never have a best friend, the things that have made my life and all the members of my family’s life worth living. But so far he has had best friends, and someone has already proposed to him on Facebook (she knows who she is smile).
Sure he has accomplished many things as a young boy living with Autism, but what are they if you are Autistic, and in the obvious social ways that define a life, you cannot share these highs lows and “fabulosities” - with the people who love you and who you love? I wonder what he is feeling inside.
I say Quinn “I love you” and he says “Mommy I love you” – does it have a meaning for him? Sometimes something bugs him and he gets that sad face and tears run out of his eyes and my heart feels like someone is wringing it out to hang on the clothes line. Because I don’t know what that feeling is and I cannot counsel him out of it or even help him understand, as due to Autism he doesn’t get stuff in the typical way. So I just hug him tight, tight, tight and hope the osmosis of my empathy will seep into him.
What does he want to tell us does he love us, luckily mostly he is always smiling does that mean he is super happy? I don’t know?!
Jamaica’s resources to provide the required care for an Autistic family are, meager to say the least. The Jamaican populace isn’t really fully educated on what Autism is about and so when you see a little kid like Quinn acting out, they say oh he’s spoiled or rude and it hurts. And God helps us every minute of every day, but I am just flesh and it still hurts. But I am grateful and in love with God for giving it to us the way we got it, because I have seen and helped people whose lives I would never want to have as a family living with Autism.
But 11 years after his birth I and my family friends and supporters throughout the nation, can say in all fairness that it is because Quinn was born why our family founded and Autism and Disabilities Foundation in Jamaica, and that in its three year existence in the island we have helped hundreds of Autists like him. I love all my children, no one more than the other and I can comfortably say, Quinn Garren James Smith is my son, in whom I am well pleased.
Because he was born Autistic many have been blessed and to have a child and have him accomplish so much and he is just a pre-teen is pretty damn fab!
