The Autism News | English
Eric Fritz yells with joy as he plays in shaving cream at Wyoming Valley Children’s Association. (Photo by FRED ADAMS/FOR THE TIMeS LEADER)
By Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
He squirms. He twists. He bounces up and down.
Anyone can see it’s not easy for 4-year-old Eric Fritz to sit quietly at the little table in his preschool.
“C’mon, Eric. Stop,” a therapeutic support staff worker says, gently massaging the little boy’s shoulders and trying to hold his torso still.
It’s snack time at the Wyoming Valley Children’s Association in Forty Fort – and it’s time for Eric to pay attention to speech pathologist Terry Tokach, who has put Goldfish crackers, pumpernickel pretzels and pieces of shortbread cookie on the table.
“What do you want, Eric?” Tokach repeats again and again, holding out her hand. “Which one do you want?”
She doesn’t expect Eric to say “cracker” or “pretzel” – the little boy, who was diagnosed with autism when he was going on 2 years old – doesn’t communicate verbally.
But, Tokach hopes he will communicate another way, by picking up a picture of a “cracker” or “pretzel” and handing it to her.
Again and again, he simply grabs at the pretzels and crackers (not the cookies, which he doesn’t seem to like.) Again and again, Tokach steers his hand toward the appropriate picture.
When he finally hands her one, she rewards him with food and praise.
“Good job, Eric,” she tells the child, “I like it when you ‘talk’ to me. I like it when you look at me, too.”
A reluctance to engage in eye contact is one symptom of autism, a developmental disorder that, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, affects 1 in 110 children to some extent.
Delayed verbal skills and tendencies toward hyperactivity and repetitive motions are other symptoms.
But, it was a lack of eye contact that first prompted Eric’s father, also named Eric, to suspect something was amiss.
“My husband noticed he wasn’t getting enough eye interaction,” Lori Fritz explained during an interview in the family’s Nanticoke home.
Young Eric also “had a few words, but they went away,” his mother said. “His speech isn’t there, so we do signing.”
Eric knows how to ask his parents for things he wants through sign language. The gesture for “milk” looks like you’re moving your hands to milk a cow. The gesture for “book” looks as if you’re opening the covers of a book.
“Eric’s come so far,” Lori Fritz, 37, said with a smile as Eric, her firstborn, climbed over his father’s lap and onto his shoulders, and leaned over to do a jigsaw puzzle on the floor.
“He’s good at puzzles,” said the elder Eric, who is 38.
The couple’s younger son, David, 2, favors dinosaurs, and played with several colorful ones on a recent evening.
“David likes to do everything Eric does, and Eric is usually pretty tolerant of David,” said the boys’ father, who gave up a job in sales and service to become “Mr. Mom.”
Eric’s job required out-of-state travel to cover a large territory, which caused him to miss out on a considerable amount of family time. With young Eric’s special needs, it made sense for Dad to give up his career.
“We definitely play it as a team,” said Lori, who kept her job in pharmaceutical sales. “What I’m good at doing, I do. What he’s good at doing, he does. For example, you would not want me to cook.”
Laughing, Eric the cook lets on that he likes to make homemade chili and spaghetti sauce.
A typical day for young Eric involves getting up around 7 a.m., getting dressed, perhaps watching a cartoon, and seeing a TSS worker from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.
From noon to 2:30 most days, he attends a preschool program at the children’s association, where he is in a class of seven students, each of whom receives lots of one-on-one attention.
On Mondays and Wednesdays a TSS worker spends time with him at home in the late afternoon, and every day there are familiar routines of supper, bath, story time and songs. Bedtime is about 9:30 p.m.
“He’s less resistant to going to bed than he used to be,” his father said.
Rejoicing in small triumphs
Children with autism tend to become overwhelmed by certain stimuli – it could be too many bright colors, too many people, or a whiff of a stranger’s perfume, Lori Fritz explained.
“Eric isn’t a fan of crowds,” she said.
To cope, children with autism sometimes “self-stimulate,” using repetitive motions or sounds to distract themselves from the overwhelming stimuli.
In addition to sights, sounds and aromas, textures can be a challenge.
Eric, for example, doesn’t like the way rice feels, his mother said.
Yet he doesn’t have a problem with shaving cream.
That became apparent on a recent afternoon when the staff at Eric’s preschool had an exercise designed to help the class become accustomed to the smoothness of the cream.
Teacher’s aide Cathy Wolfe spread some foam on a table and Eric plunged his hands into it with gusto.
Later that day, after his session with the speech pathologist, he met with occupational therapist Shari Aude, who soon had him coloring a picture of a bear with crayons, then finger-painting various shapes and lines.
“This is to get him used to the idea of holding a pencil,” Aude said.
One part of his therapy Eric really seemed to enjoy was swinging on his stomach in a contraption called a “prone swing” or “vestibular swing.”
Lying in a canvas swing that was suspended from the ceiling and hanging just a few inches above a thick rubber mat on the floor, Eric reached down to the mat with his hands and propelled himself around.
“This is to help him understand his place in space, to deal with gravitational insecurity,” Aude said. “It’s exercising his arms and hands too, and that will be helpful for holding a pencil. That’s something he needs for kindergarten readiness.”
What kind of school Eric eventually attends is a matter as yet undecided, his dad said, and it’s hard to predict what his life will be like as an adult. Web sites devoted to autism suggest careers as diverse as caring for animals or searching for abnormal cells on a microscope slide can be ideal for some with autism.
For now, Eric’s parents rejoice in the small triumphs, as when their son communicates through sign language or obeys a simple request, perhaps to put away a toy.
He does seem to be in perpetual motion, and the reason for all that jumping and running around sometimes mystifies his parents.
“We don’t know if he’s being willful,” Lori Fritz said. “Or is it because he can’t help it?”
The Fritz family of Nanticoke relaxes in the family room of their Nanticoke home. Lori, left, watches her husband, Eric, and son Eric, 4, play. (photo by Pete G. Wilcox/The Times Leader)
Source: http://www.timesleader.com/features/Eric_rsquo_s_world_03-14-2010.html
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The Autism News English autism, autistic, Eric’s world, Fritz family, Nanticoke
The Autism News | English
