An Autism story

Sean and I were playing a game of Memory two nights ago. That is a very age appropriate game for him and he's good at it. He understands the way the game is played. He takes turns well. He is also skilled at it. He remembers where the cards are, maybe even better than me. He was beating me 5 matches to 1, and then autism showed up. I know he is autistic all the time, but he has periods where his mind seems to work like a typical kid and then times when his mind is clearly doing its own thing.

He turned over a card with a strawberry on it. (He calls them "sqawbabies.") They are one of his favorite things these days. Not to eat, of course, but to look at. In real life or in pictures. He also loves feeding them to me or Jonathan. He fixated on the strawberry. Every turn, he would flip the strawberry card first and I would have to remind him to flip a second card. Flipping the same card over every turn is not the best strategy for Memory, in case you haven't played for a while. He still payed enough attention to the game to know where matches were located. If I flipped over a car for my second card, for example, he would point to where the other car was on the board. But then his turn would come and he would flip that sqawbaby over and forget all about the car match. I searched and searched for that other strawberry so I could get it off the board but it was elusive. Needless to say, I beat the pants off of him but he couldn't care less.

Next game I will leave the strawberries out and maybe we will get through the whole game. Or he may decide to fixate on the flower, or the cat, or the banana.......