today Monday February 7, 2011

NEWS

Mother with autistic son shares about their life in a book and gets others to open up too
Venessa Lee
correspondent venessa@mediacorp.com.sg

What its like to live with autism

What seems like disciplinary problems is not due to rebelliousness or defiance, said Ms Tan, adding that the challenge is how to meet the expectations of the public, which probably has firm views about what is socially acceptable.
neighbouring flats during his daily walk. Other general characteristics of autism, a developmental disorder, include poor language and interpersonal skills. Social interaction and conventional learning can present profound challenges it could take 10 times more effort, said Ms Tan, who also has a three-year-old daughter. Calders younger sister, Ethel, learnt to gargle after watching one demonstration. In contrast, we taught him for about two years, said his mother. A contributor to the book, named as Jack, wrote about how he was teased at school and how he unintentionally offends people. I noticed that girls often hug each other, so I tried hugging them too. They freaked out, wrote Jack, who was preparing for his A levels when the book was printed. He has a form of autism called Aspergers syndrome. Calder recently took a psychological test to see if he could be placed in a school like Pathlight, which provides mainstream education to autistic children here. While it was a huge disappointment that he was found to be unsuited for this mode of education, in a way it was a relief, said Ms Tan. The stress really went down, she said, I looked at him differently. Hes no longer a boy who doesnt match up any more. Hes not running the rat race. Now, theres no deadline on his learning any more. More information on Come Into My World: 31 Stories Of Autism In Singapore can be found at www.come-into-my-world.com.

SINGAPORE Burger, fries, ice-cream. It was meant to be an unchanging fast-food sequence but things got hairy. Ms Brenda Tans son, Calder, is autistic and an obsession with routine is a trait associated with his condition. The icecream dispenser was out of order that day and no dessert would mean a break in the routine, which could have sparked a tornado-like meltdown on Calders part, said Ms Tan, who recently self-published a book on autism. It was a miracle that he could contain his uneasiness and temper, she told Today, explaining that Calder seemed to be persuaded by the option of having icecream at home instead. I ask for miracles on a daily basis, added Ms Tan, who credits her Christian faith with helping her cope with a child whos sometimes beyond her. Calder, now six, was diagnosed with moderate autism when he was three. In the foreword to her book, Come Into My World: 31 Stories Of Autism In Singapore, she describes how she once saw a toddler slamming his head against his mother, leaving her in tears, with bloodied lips. Murmurs about his needing a good spanking missed the point, she realised years later. The boy probably was autistic and was having a meltdown a term familiar, through painful experience, to many parents of autistic children. The boy on the bus did not want his mum to sit so close to him, much less hug him many autistic children cannot bear to be touched, wrote Ms Tan, 36. The stories in her book were written by her and other contributors, including individuals diagnosed with autism, and siblings of autistic persons. I was looking for personal accounts some kind of connection with other parents of autistic children, said the part-time lecturer and ex-journalist, adding that she hopes to increase public awareness and support of individuals with autism.

author brenda tan and her son Calder. Photo Courtesy brenda tan

What looks like oddness or behavioural problems such as flapping arms like a chickens wings, making strange noises, walking in circles, throwing tantrums that end only through sheer exhaustion can be par for the course for autistic persons, who experience the world in a different way, noted Ms Tan. What seems like disciplinary problems is not due to rebelliousness or defiance, said Ms Tan, adding that the challenge is how to meet the expectations of the public, which probably has firm views about what is socially acceptable. One contributor, who wanted to be known as Orange, realised in secondary school that he was autistic after reading the fictional work, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon,

whose main character is autistic. Orange wrote that his parents are Chinese-educated and their trust in Traditional Chinese Medicine meant that his main form of treatment was acupuncture and Chinese herbs. His parents who refused to place him in a special school as the doctor advised still think that he is normal and not autistic, added Orange, who is introduced in the book as being a psychology student at a private university. Persons diagnosed with autism often insist on bewildering forms of repetition and routine. One contributor to the book has a child who, at two, consistently threw tantrums when taken on walks in his stroller. They only ceased when his parents discovered that he wanted to look at all the lifts in the

Tweets led Singaporean on a road trip ... to making a documentary

SINGAPORE It began as a road trip through the United States for Singaporean film-maker Tan Siok Siok, based solely on leads and information from users of microblogging site Twitter. And the experience over three weeks as she explored the new social phenomenon has culminated in Twittamentary, a 70-minute documentary made from real-time responses to Ms Tans tweets as she travelled from New York to Los Angeles. Ms Tan told MediaCorp: I love Twitter, I have experienced a lot of its magic, so to speak ... So I think a film that can somehow capture the zeitgeist of Twitter, capture the spirit it will be a very difficult film to make. The entire production of the documentary from idea to fruition took about two years. On Jan 31, students from the Singapore Management University got a preview of Ms Tans film. Come Wednesday, the movie will be screened at Hackerspace Singapore at 70A Bussorah Street. Twittamentary is Ms Tans second independent film. Her first was Boomtown Beijing a documentary which she directed about the city of Beijing, its people and their dreams the summer before the Olympics, according to her blog. Describing her latest efforts as a terrible way to make a film, Ms Tan, a former executive producer of Discovery Channel in Asia, said: You abdicate it. You do research but you dont follow the research. You depend on strangers, who are your fixers. Content for the documentary was developed impromptu from tweets, she added. The film features a wide range of Twitterers from a travel journalist turned twilebrity (a twitter celebrity) to a homeless woman tweeting from the public library. Ms Tan said: This is not just a film where I went around filming other peoples twitter stories. But the making of the film itself is an amazing story about how you can use Twitter to realise your creative vision. Lynda honG