(article)A New Challenge: Autistic boy goes to middle school

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A new challenge
Autistic boy goes to middle school

Carrie Watters
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 5, 2005 12:00 AM

Cedric Benedict is like thousands of Valley children who headed back to school this week, but the handsome boy with brown hair and eyes is different. He spent months practicing for the seventh grade.

Middle school can be chaotic. Children chatter. New teachers greet students. Water fountains buzz and a central air-conditioning unit hums to life. Cedric, 12, must sort input coming from all directions.

He learned how in two years at the Children's Center for Neurodevelopmental Studies, a Glendale-based therapy center and school that primarily works with children who have autism.

The disorder - affecting 1.5 million Americans, according to the Autism Society of America - makes it tricky to sort sensory information from sight to smell that most people don't think about twice.

Cedric and classmate Kirstie Kendall graduated last week from the Children's Center, which educates about 75 pupils at a time. The celebration included caps and gowns, singing, playing and saying goodbye to teachers and classmates.

Now the young graduates move forward to traditional public schools. Cedric is going to Orangedale School in the Balsz School District.

To prepare, he scanned a neatly arranged photo album of the school near his home on Lewis Avenue in Phoenix. He identified snapshots of classrooms, classmates and the gate he would walk through each morning. One picture showed a teacher with and without her glasses so he didn't get confused.

Another featured a fence with a colorful snake uncoiled on its bricks. Cedric's mom Dawn Benedict said it was a rattler, the school mascot.

Cedric was surprised.

"It's a mascot. I thought it was an ascot," he said.

Seconds later he repeated it.

"A mascot," he said, taking his time with the newfound knowledge.

"I thought it was ascot."

Life is like that for Cedric. His mother remembers when they bought their house and a Realtor teased Cedric that he was king of the hill.

"No, this is concrete and a hill is made of dirt," Cedric said.

English is filled with phrases that can't be taken literally. Cedric learns them one by one.

Autism is an umbrella term and those under it vary. There are the Dustin Hoffman-types from the Rain Man movie of 1988, which brought the disorder into mainstream consciousness. Hoffman played a savant, amazing in his ability to count but unable to navigate the disorder of life.

Others aren't gifted, although the diagnosis is not a reflection of intelligence, according to Lorna Jean King, an occupational therapist who founded the Glendale Children's Center in 1978.

Despite this, some with autism have trouble talking and others cannot walk because of a jumbled sense of physical space, King said.

"They literally don't know which end is up," she said.

Then there are those like Cedric, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, considered by some as a high-functioning form of autism.

"Autistic kids live in their own world. Asperger's kids live in our world, but in their own way," a doctor once explained to Dawn Benedict.

Like most mothers, Dawn Benedict advocates fiercely for her son, bending the world a little in his favor. She insisted that Orangedale educators watch a three-hour video on teaching students with autism.

Although he appears like any child with a love of being outside, making friends and playing with Star Wars action figures, his world is also unique.

He hears the trickle of a leaky faucet with as much emphasis as the person talking in front of him. A light touch can be painful.

Spoken words do not fluently enter the brain, but instead need sorting. Cedric, whose vocabulary flourished at the Children's Center, can have a 10-second delay before responding to conversation.

"It's like they have super senses. They're being bombarded," said Christine Ford, Cedric's former teacher at the Children's Center.

Routines with predictable patterns are critical. Ford said Cedric's ability to adjust to new stimuli would be his greatest challenge at Orangedale.

So far, so good.

"He was excited," said Dawn Benedict after his first day. "He said he made lots of new friends."


Contact the reporter at carrie.watters@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-6934.

Cedric is very fortunate to live in a district that is willing to help him succeed, and very fortunate to have parents who know what his rights are and demand them. Because legally....thats how all districts should be, but sadly are not.