Featured Blog: Defective Yeti

In typically modest fashion, our featured blogger, Matthew Baldwin describes himself as a pretty okay guy. Matthew writes the Defective Yeti blog about his experiences as a dad to Squiggle-the online pseudonym for his 3 year old son. 18 months ago Squiggle, who was formerly refereed to as Squirrelly, was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the Defective Yeti makes for a great resource and inspiration for other parents with ASD children. Or for that matter any parent. Matthew manages to write posts that are hilarious and poignant—recent ones have dealt with Captain America, a romantic weekend with the Queen, aka Mrs. Defective Yeti, and the rationale for changing pseudonyms to Squiggle from Squirrelly.

The latter post ending with words of wisdom all parents could benefit from:

Raising an autistic child is frequently frustrating and often exhausting, but it also brings it’s own rewards. In many respects it is like watching a foreign movie: sometimes you feel like you don’t have enough context to understand everything that is happening, but you appreciate that you are seeing a story completely different from the conventional narrative.

Squiggle is different than typical kids, but that’s okay. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be the son we love so much.

Matthew kindly agreed to answer a few questions for Clever Parents about raising a child with ASD, the meaning of Defective Yeti and his ‘must-have’ purchase for new parents. (Which this Clever Parent whole-heartedly endorses.) We encourage you to check out Defective Yeti regularly.

Clever Parents: Explain the meaning behind Defective Yeti?
Defective Yeti: It’s meaningless, a bizarre combination of words that tumbled out of my mouth one day. A week later, when I was on the Blogger sign-up and informed that I had to give my blog a name, I just plugged them in, figuring I would rename the site late. Yeah, should probably get around to that someday …

CP: What do you do for a living?
DY: I’m a programmer and technical writer. I don’t know that I’d call it “living.”

CP: What’s your favorite activity to do with Squiggle?
DY: Squiggle loves to swim. I started taking him to the local pool when he was about a year old, and we still try and get out there at least once a week. I also enjoy singing him songs (we’re on a ” Fox Song” tear, right now), reading him books, and giving him any of the many hugs we have co-invented (including the “hat hug,” “bat hug,” and ever-popular “whirly hug”).

CP: What advice do you have for parents with kids who have ASD or suspect their children might? What are the early signs to look for?
DY: The earliest signs of Autistic Spectrum Disorder are gaze avoidance (reluctance to make eye contact) and intermittent name response–using those as criteria, children can be diagnosed as young as 18 months. Let me rephrase that: using those as criteria, trained professionals can diagnose children as young as 18 months. Don’t try and do it yourself. Too many parents with neurotypical children freak themselves out every time their toddler does anything unusual (”Omigod, he’s walking on his tiptoes!!”), and too many parents of ASD kids manage to convince themselves that nothing is amiss.

If your child is diagnosed with ASD, the first (and hardest) thing to wrap your head around is that autism is a “pervasive developmental disorder” (PDD). In other words, it’s not something distinct from your child (as, say, a flu virus would be), it’s an integral part of who they are.

Unless your child is very high-functioning he will benefit from therapy of some sort or another. The goal of this therapy will be to augment your child’s natural talent with the life skills he will need to navigate the world–not to “cure” him of his autism. Curing someone of autism (or any PPD) would be like curing someone of a sense of humor–it might be possible, but, in doing so, you would turn them into a completely different person. Instead, recognize that the child that now has a diagnosis of autism is the exact same kid you’ve loved all these months, and your objective now should be to help them, not to “fix” them.

CP: What are you listening to now?
DY: www.groovera.com

CP: What must-have purchase would you recommend for new parents?
DY: Bourbon.

CP: Outside of family and work, what are your hobbies?
DY: I enjoy board games, racquetball, crime fiction (both the reading and writing of), and watching the slo-mo Bush Administration implosion.