09-03-2007, 10:12 PM
Knowing how to be a positive force
By Karen McCowan
The Register-Guard
Published: Monday, September 3, 2007
Harrisburg High School student body president Aaron Barden is a three-sport athlete and school newspaper editor. The 16-year-old senior loves math and already has earned college credit by passing his Advanced Placement Composition exam as a junior. He is youth representative on the Harrisburg Planning Commission, attended the Boys State mock political convention this summer and hopes to attend law school one day.
Your typical, over-achieving student leader?
Not entirely.
Aaron has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. Autism affects an estimated 1 in 91 Eugene-Springfield area children, impairing their ability to filter sensory information and read social cues.
For such students, the normal noise and chaos of a middle or high school amount to a "sensory assault," said Mary-Minn Sirag, a local spokeswoman for the Autism Society of Oregon. And their inability to recognize and defuse escalating tensions can lead to "meltdowns" - explosions of rage.
All of which make Aaron's success as a student leader "pretty extraordinary," said Sirag, an artist and teacher who has autism herself.
"Wow!' she said. "It's not unusual for someone with autism to be bright or to do well in school. But the public success is remarkable."
Coming from a family that believes in public service - his mother, Kim Barden is on the Harrisburg City Council - Aaron has long been interested in the political process as a way to solve problems. He ran for student body president because he wants to change the way his classmates feel about Harrisburg High.
"I was tired of hearing how everybody hated this school," he said. "I want us to have more activities so people have more fun here. I want us to have more rewards for good grades."
Aaron's path through school has hardly been smooth. He was expelled from two private schools - once for allegedly "beating up" the principal when he was just five years old.
As recently as middle school, he was repeatedly suspended because of his actions during meltdowns, such as "yelling, screaming, maybe picking something up and throwing it."
But he has managed to control his behavior, thanks to his own determination and to the size of 280-student Harrisburg High, where virtually everyone knows him and his condition.
"In small communities like this, kids all grow up together and learn to accept people for who they are," said Wayne Moyer, who will have Aaron in pre-calculus this fall. "When he has an episode, the other kids know, 'Yeah, that's Aaron - he does that.' "
"The other students know when to stop with him, when to not push that button," agreed his English and journalism teacher, Sarah Prater Eichner. "But he's also really learned how to work with other people - when I had him as a freshman, he could not work in groups without blowing up."
Harrisburg High principal and district special education director Larry Cot<142> said Aaron "knows what his disability is. He knows when things are going to cause him to overreact. And the school has given him the space to be able to get himself under control, whether that means going to the office or walking outside onto the baseball field to regain his composure."
Aaron credits the school with also recognizing the good things people with autism have to offer.
Moyer noted, for example, that Aaron has an unusual ability to get "very focused" on math. He recounted one time when Aaron overheard him explaining a math concept to another class while standing outside Moyer's open classroom window.
"He started asking questions from outside," the teacher recalled. "Pretty soon he was so into it, he climbed in through the window so he could get in on the discussion. I'll never forget him sort of pouring himself onto the floor."
That focus allows him to "gain insight that students who take a more casual approach aren't able to get - he's thinking about it so deeply, he's able to see the larger picture."
Aaron's academic life is a far cry from what some experts predicted during the frustrating decade before his autism was diagnosed.
"I was told, 'You'll be lucky if he's even able to take care of himself,' " Kim Barden said.
She knew her second-born child was different from the time he was born. He never cried as an infant. He didn't speak as a toddler. "He would just make these guttural sounds and point," Kim said.
A doctor diagnosed hearing problems and a small growth was found in Aaron's ear. Even after the growth was removed, however, he didn't talk until age 4, when he quickly began speaking in complete sentences and sounding out words. A Christian school near the family's California home balked at Kim's effort to enroll her son in kindergarten a year early, until he took a language skills test and scored in the 90th percentile for first-graders.
Aaron was unusual in other ways.
"If you put most kids in a playpen, pretty soon they're crying to get out," she recalled. "Aaron would cry to get in. He liked to be enclosed. He liked to sleep in his toy box."
"I was a weird kid!" her son interjected.
"No - you're actually typical among Aspies," Kim said, using an affectionate nickname for Aaron's condition.
Other behavior typical of Asperger's Syndrome soon caused problems at school. Aaron often acted out physically when things become too chaotic or he felt someone had treated him unfairly. "You scream and yell - maybe push someone or pick a dish up and throw it," he recalled.
The episodes are not willful misbehavior, he said.
"During a meltdown, I'm not really aware of my surroundings," he explained. "It's like I'm sleep-walking."
Cot<142> agreed. "A regular ed kid can stop and think about what their next action is going to be," he said. "But students with Asperger's have a disability in which they cannot really control that."
"Meltdowns can be scary," Kim Barden acknowledged. "But overreacting just feeds them."
Aaron said he can't remember allegedly assaulting a principal at age 5. (Kim said the man, who appeared uninjured, was sitting on her son to hold him down when she rushed to the school.)
Not until Aaron was 10 and living in Harrisburg was he correctly diagnosed, after Kim recognized her son in a list of Asperger's Syndrome behaviors.
"I read that they have a tendency to line toys up, and I started to cry," she said. "Aaron had always lined his stuffed animals up around his bunk bed, and got in trouble from his third grade teacher when he would sneak them to school and put them up around his desk."
In an interview last month, Aaron said he hopes his accomplishments will inspire other students with autism to pursue their ambitions.
"If you have a dream, just go for it," he said. "If someone makes fun of you, do it anyway. People made fun of me. And I ran for office again even after I got creamed when I tried the first time. You have to gut through it. Otherwise, you'll end up living with your parents your whole life."
In Aaron's case, his parents also deserve much of the credit for his success, Cot<142> said.
"As he's come up through middle school and now the high school, they've kept me apprised of things happening in the field of Asperger's. They've let me know how Aaron reacts to certain things."
With Aaron and his parents, Cot<142> and the rest of the staff at Harrisburg High have devised ways to give Aaron the tools to recognize situations that lead to meltdowns and a safe place to go when one occurs.
"Once he's got it off his chest, he walks away and we're good to go," Cot<142> said. "I don't punish Aaron for his disability. And he is becoming aware of when he may have upset a teacher or another student or his coach. He goes back to make things right."
AUTISM ADVICE
Aaron and Kim Barden share some insights for dealing with the condition.
Aaron's advice to parents: Don't let your son or daughter with Asperger's be too attached. If you baby them, they're not going to be able to go out into that other world when they turn 18.
Aaron's advice to educators: When you have students with autism, don't just see their problems. See what they have to offer. I can learn things really quickly - sometimes faster than a lot of other people who are smart - so I can help other students.
Kim's advice to educators: Educate even young children about their autism. Don't overreact to a meltdown. Students with Asperger's should be held accountable, but also understood. Respond calmly and in a businesslike way. It's not personal.
Resources for Students and Parents: http://www.oregonautism.com, (888) 288-4761 or http://www.kindtree.org
By Karen McCowan
The Register-Guard
Published: Monday, September 3, 2007
Harrisburg High School student body president Aaron Barden is a three-sport athlete and school newspaper editor. The 16-year-old senior loves math and already has earned college credit by passing his Advanced Placement Composition exam as a junior. He is youth representative on the Harrisburg Planning Commission, attended the Boys State mock political convention this summer and hopes to attend law school one day.
Your typical, over-achieving student leader?
Not entirely.
Aaron has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. Autism affects an estimated 1 in 91 Eugene-Springfield area children, impairing their ability to filter sensory information and read social cues.
For such students, the normal noise and chaos of a middle or high school amount to a "sensory assault," said Mary-Minn Sirag, a local spokeswoman for the Autism Society of Oregon. And their inability to recognize and defuse escalating tensions can lead to "meltdowns" - explosions of rage.
All of which make Aaron's success as a student leader "pretty extraordinary," said Sirag, an artist and teacher who has autism herself.
"Wow!' she said. "It's not unusual for someone with autism to be bright or to do well in school. But the public success is remarkable."
Coming from a family that believes in public service - his mother, Kim Barden is on the Harrisburg City Council - Aaron has long been interested in the political process as a way to solve problems. He ran for student body president because he wants to change the way his classmates feel about Harrisburg High.
"I was tired of hearing how everybody hated this school," he said. "I want us to have more activities so people have more fun here. I want us to have more rewards for good grades."
Aaron's path through school has hardly been smooth. He was expelled from two private schools - once for allegedly "beating up" the principal when he was just five years old.
As recently as middle school, he was repeatedly suspended because of his actions during meltdowns, such as "yelling, screaming, maybe picking something up and throwing it."
But he has managed to control his behavior, thanks to his own determination and to the size of 280-student Harrisburg High, where virtually everyone knows him and his condition.
"In small communities like this, kids all grow up together and learn to accept people for who they are," said Wayne Moyer, who will have Aaron in pre-calculus this fall. "When he has an episode, the other kids know, 'Yeah, that's Aaron - he does that.' "
"The other students know when to stop with him, when to not push that button," agreed his English and journalism teacher, Sarah Prater Eichner. "But he's also really learned how to work with other people - when I had him as a freshman, he could not work in groups without blowing up."
Harrisburg High principal and district special education director Larry Cot<142> said Aaron "knows what his disability is. He knows when things are going to cause him to overreact. And the school has given him the space to be able to get himself under control, whether that means going to the office or walking outside onto the baseball field to regain his composure."
Aaron credits the school with also recognizing the good things people with autism have to offer.
Moyer noted, for example, that Aaron has an unusual ability to get "very focused" on math. He recounted one time when Aaron overheard him explaining a math concept to another class while standing outside Moyer's open classroom window.
"He started asking questions from outside," the teacher recalled. "Pretty soon he was so into it, he climbed in through the window so he could get in on the discussion. I'll never forget him sort of pouring himself onto the floor."
That focus allows him to "gain insight that students who take a more casual approach aren't able to get - he's thinking about it so deeply, he's able to see the larger picture."
Aaron's academic life is a far cry from what some experts predicted during the frustrating decade before his autism was diagnosed.
"I was told, 'You'll be lucky if he's even able to take care of himself,' " Kim Barden said.
She knew her second-born child was different from the time he was born. He never cried as an infant. He didn't speak as a toddler. "He would just make these guttural sounds and point," Kim said.
A doctor diagnosed hearing problems and a small growth was found in Aaron's ear. Even after the growth was removed, however, he didn't talk until age 4, when he quickly began speaking in complete sentences and sounding out words. A Christian school near the family's California home balked at Kim's effort to enroll her son in kindergarten a year early, until he took a language skills test and scored in the 90th percentile for first-graders.
Aaron was unusual in other ways.
"If you put most kids in a playpen, pretty soon they're crying to get out," she recalled. "Aaron would cry to get in. He liked to be enclosed. He liked to sleep in his toy box."
"I was a weird kid!" her son interjected.
"No - you're actually typical among Aspies," Kim said, using an affectionate nickname for Aaron's condition.
Other behavior typical of Asperger's Syndrome soon caused problems at school. Aaron often acted out physically when things become too chaotic or he felt someone had treated him unfairly. "You scream and yell - maybe push someone or pick a dish up and throw it," he recalled.
The episodes are not willful misbehavior, he said.
"During a meltdown, I'm not really aware of my surroundings," he explained. "It's like I'm sleep-walking."
Cot<142> agreed. "A regular ed kid can stop and think about what their next action is going to be," he said. "But students with Asperger's have a disability in which they cannot really control that."
"Meltdowns can be scary," Kim Barden acknowledged. "But overreacting just feeds them."
Aaron said he can't remember allegedly assaulting a principal at age 5. (Kim said the man, who appeared uninjured, was sitting on her son to hold him down when she rushed to the school.)
Not until Aaron was 10 and living in Harrisburg was he correctly diagnosed, after Kim recognized her son in a list of Asperger's Syndrome behaviors.
"I read that they have a tendency to line toys up, and I started to cry," she said. "Aaron had always lined his stuffed animals up around his bunk bed, and got in trouble from his third grade teacher when he would sneak them to school and put them up around his desk."
In an interview last month, Aaron said he hopes his accomplishments will inspire other students with autism to pursue their ambitions.
"If you have a dream, just go for it," he said. "If someone makes fun of you, do it anyway. People made fun of me. And I ran for office again even after I got creamed when I tried the first time. You have to gut through it. Otherwise, you'll end up living with your parents your whole life."
In Aaron's case, his parents also deserve much of the credit for his success, Cot<142> said.
"As he's come up through middle school and now the high school, they've kept me apprised of things happening in the field of Asperger's. They've let me know how Aaron reacts to certain things."
With Aaron and his parents, Cot<142> and the rest of the staff at Harrisburg High have devised ways to give Aaron the tools to recognize situations that lead to meltdowns and a safe place to go when one occurs.
"Once he's got it off his chest, he walks away and we're good to go," Cot<142> said. "I don't punish Aaron for his disability. And he is becoming aware of when he may have upset a teacher or another student or his coach. He goes back to make things right."
AUTISM ADVICE
Aaron and Kim Barden share some insights for dealing with the condition.
Aaron's advice to parents: Don't let your son or daughter with Asperger's be too attached. If you baby them, they're not going to be able to go out into that other world when they turn 18.
Aaron's advice to educators: When you have students with autism, don't just see their problems. See what they have to offer. I can learn things really quickly - sometimes faster than a lot of other people who are smart - so I can help other students.
Kim's advice to educators: Educate even young children about their autism. Don't overreact to a meltdown. Students with Asperger's should be held accountable, but also understood. Respond calmly and in a businesslike way. It's not personal.
Resources for Students and Parents: http://www.oregonautism.com, (888) 288-4761 or http://www.kindtree.org
Batman, I swear -- someone could mention, "My aunt went to Boston on a bus" and you would post "Oh, my god! I saw a bus just yesterday! WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!?!"