Kim's Story, Chapter 9: Our Little Bear Cub

Kim’s Story, Chapter 9: Our Autism Journey.
Kim’s mobility choice was the Bear Crawl. Our little bear cub could move amazingly fast in this four-on-the-floor method.

“Do you think she crawls like that because she has a dress on?” This question was asked of me one Sunday afternoon, as my friend watched Kim skimming across the room to get her favorite toy. Her pink bear.

“No, actually, she moves like that all the time, no matter what she’s wearing.”

My friend looked at me with speculation in her blue eyes. I knew what she was thinking.

Kim’s grandma had already informed me that Kim’s way of “crawling” was not kosher.

She needed to crawl on her hands and knees for her brain to develop correctly.

Kim sensed the change of mood in the air, and dragged her bear over to sit at my feet. The place she felt safest, and where she usually sat when we had company in the house.

At least, when she wasn’t on my lap.

Kim’s Story: Our Autism Journey

We’ve shared about Autism Spectrum Disorder before, here, here and here, but now we decided to tell Kim’s story, and our journey on the spectrum (without knowing we were there). Because when a child is on the spectrum, the journey involves the whole family. This article studies the effects of autism on the family.

Kim’s Story: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8

This post is Chapter 9.

Kim’s Story Chapter 9:

When Kim became mobile, her choice of mobility was crawling on her hands and feet.

Her knees rarely touched the floor with her weight on them.

80% of her crawling was on soft, thick carpet, and the rest a smooth linoleum. (Since it was the 90s, that linoleum was a shiny, pinkish greige background in a 12″ square tile pattern with mauve flowers at the corners.) And the linoleum was new and un-cracked, so it wasn’t uneven. painful floor texture that kept her from putting her knees on the floor.

Looking back, I can imagine that she didn’t like the feel of the carpet on her legs when she crawled. Sitting, she would have felt it, but not in a scraping motion across it. I now have watched a granddaughter who couldn’t stand the feel of grass on her bare feet. She would tolerate sitting in the grass, but she would not walk on it. Now, of course, grass doesn’t bother her a bit. But at the time she was learning to walk, and feeling it for the first time, she balked. She’s not autistic, so that seems to promote my theory at the time Kim was monkey crawling.

There wasn’t something wrong with her just because of the way she crawled. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t learn certain things because her knees weren’t on the floor as she moved around. Moved very speedily, I have to say.

Were we right or not? Should we have taken her form of mobility more seriously?

What the experts say:

“What are the Early Signs of Autism?” by healthychildren.org (sponsored by The American Academy of Pediatrics) says this:

“Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show developmental differences when they are babies—especially in their social and language skills. Because they usually sit, crawl, and walk on time, less obvious differences in the development of body gestures, pretend play, and social language often go unnoticed.”

They list many differences between neuro-typical and ASD babies.

Social differences

(the following is quoted from the above article):

May not keep eye contact or makes little or no eye contact
Shows no or less response to a parent’s smile or other facial expressions
May not look at objects or events a parent is looking at or pointing to
May not point to objects or events to get a parent to look at them
Less likely to bring objects of personal interest to show to a parent
May not have appropriate facial expressions
Has difficulty perceiving what others might be thinking or feeling by looking at their facial expressions
Less likely to show concern (empathy) for others
Has difficulty making and keeping friends

Communication differences

Less likely to point at things to indicate needs or share things with others
Says no single words by 15 months or 2-word phrases by 24 months
Repeats exactly what others say without understanding the meaning (often called parroting or echoing)
May not respond to name being called but does respond to other sounds (like a car horn or a cat’s meow)
May refers to self as “you” and others as “I” and may mix up pronouns
May show no or less interest in communicating
Less likely to start or continue a conversation
Less likely to use toys or other objects to represent people or real life in pretend play
May have a good rote memory, especially for numbers, letters, songs, TV jingles, or a specific topic
May lose language or other social milestones, usually between the ages of 15 and 24 months (often called regression)

Behavorial differences

Rocks, spins, sways, twirls fingers, walks on toes for a long time, or flaps hands (called “stereotypic behavior” or stereotypies)
Likes routines, order, and rituals; has difficulty with change or transition from one activity to another
May be obsessed with a few or unusual activities, doing them repeatedly during the day
Plays with parts of toys instead of the whole toy (e.g., spinning the wheels of a toy truck)
May not cry if in pain or seem to have any fear
May be very sensitive or not sensitive at all to smells, sounds, lights, textures, and touch
May have unusual use of vision or gaze—looks at objects from unusual angles

That’s a long list of differences. And only a few, looking back now and un-noted then, applied to Kim.

In all reality,

her form of mobility as a baby was not a cause for concern. Many neuro-typical children have quirks of crawling also. Our friends’ daughter never got on hands and knees. She sat, and pulled herself along by putting a leg forward along the floor, and pulling her bum and other leg after it. She was fast. And a very normal looking 6 year old, now.

Our friends noticed differences about Kim, and at this stage of her life, they might have had questions. But their conclusion would have been “she’s quirky like her parents” or “she’ll grow out of it.” The only voiced concerns were about her weight and her uninterest in food.

And mild amusement at her choice of mobility.

I secretly worried that she didn’t seem interested in trying to walk. Crawling on all fours seemed to suit her just fine.

And then, on her first birthday,

Kim started walking.

After that, she rarely went down on all fours again. Only to play.

When she knew she could walk without falling, she walked. But not before. It was almost as it she waited until she knew she could do it, and started. There wasn’t a lot of trying and falling. Didn’t she like to fall? Was she thinking so deeply about everything then already? Judging if she could or if she couldn’t. Then doing it.