One of the key factors for recognizing autism in children is "inappropriate play". This simply means playing with toys, or other items, in a way other than they way they were intended to be played with. In this series I captured Jacob doing just that. In this case the "toy" happens to be a pry-bar/nail puller. It makes little difference what the item is, it can be a gun, a doll, a car, a stick, or just about anything else. When Jake is playing he often holds the item in front of his face and
manipulates it. While he is doing this he makes noises, sometimes engine noises, sometimes gun noises, sometimes fighting noises.
Sometimes he carries on a conversation. When he was younger this type of play was the only time when he would speak in an intelligible manner. This behavior can last for a few seconds or many minutes. When he is manipulating objects he becomes very unaware of his
surroundings and
sometimes tenses his muscles to the point where is body will actually shake. If the object has moving parts he will sometimes pause briefly to move them.
I have often sat quietly
watching him play like this for up to ten minutes. It is quite fascinating to watch even though I have been seeing it for years. When I took these pictures his brother, Josh, and cousin, Trent, were near by shooting targets with deer rifles. That is why he is wearing hearing protection. Jacob is very big on hearing protection as he does not like loud, especially sudden, noises. These pictures were taken in the span of less then one minute. In all I took nine shots. In the first three you can see him manipulating the pry bar in front of his face. As I said this can go on for many minutes. He is completely unaware that I am taking pictures or even watching him.
In the fourth picture he notices that I am watching him and taking pictures. This causes him to pause and think about what he has been doing. Whenever he is engaged in this behavior it is as if he is under a spell and as soon as he becomes aware of someone watching him the spell is broken.
Now that he has assessed the situation he is embarrassed.
Now he discreetly puts the pry-bar down and out of sight.
Finally he makes a nice recovery and covers his embarrassment by posing for the camera.
In the end he still owns the camera. :)
Peace, all.
This picture is from May last year. Jake was ten. When I look at this picture I see my little boy becoming a tween. And I guess that makes me more than a little sad. Life is difficult for an autistic, even someone high functioning like Jake. He has always face life's difficulties with that smile but I don't see it as much these days and fear I will see it less in years to come. I suspect that his teen years will be especially difficult as he struggles to adjust to the changing social rules of his peers. The truth is, a large part of me wishes he would stay a little boy forever. That way I could always look over and protect him. I guess a lot of parents go through this but I didn't really feel this way with the older boys so it's new to me. 
