Living With Autism
Sammie's Story
by
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She is lying in a hospital crib with tubes and needles providing sustenance and medication to her tiny body. The sign on her door says “ISOLATION” and it strikes terror to my heart. The doctors and nurses are grim-faced and unsmiling. They are trying to save her life. Covered with a hospital gown, gloves and mask, I can only look at Sammie, I can’t touch my baby. She has been here for less than a week, but has already had two spinal taps. She squirms and throws her arms up and the needles make her hands bleed, so the nurse moves them to another location. When that one tears her little hand open, they move it down to her foot.
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About the Book
This book was written to try to show the evolution of methods of teaching autistic children. When we lived in Michigan in 1971, the special education teachers were aware of autism and already had programs for their special needs. When we moved to California, we found the special education teachers well-equipped to teach trainable mentally retarded children, but woefully unprepared for autistic ones. These teachers and aides became remarkable and heroic advocates for autistic children.
About the Author
Suzanne C. Brown has an autistic daughter who was born in 1971, a time when autism was not widely known. This is about their journey through the special education schools in California. She, her husband and daughter, Samantha, live on a small ranch in San Miguel, California.