When I first heard about John’s diagnosis in the Spring of 2005, I knew nothing about autism. Like a lot of folks, my only reference point at the time was the movie Rain Man. Of course I know now, Raymond Babbitt was a dramatized version of an autistic savant and that manifestations of autism cover a wide spectrum. But I talk to folks today and for some that movie is what they think of when they hear the word autism.

The next obvious step was to scour the internet. I was intent on learning more about what John and his family were facing especially since back then we lived 3000 miles away in Redmond, Washington. I found clinical definitions, charity sites, news articles, blogs – a wide range sources and stories none of which gave me a sense of what it was like to raise a child with autism.

There were several memoirs written by parents of children with autism. I’m not sure how I picked it – probably based on reviews – but the first book I read was Susan Senator’s Making Peace With Autism. She is a professional writer and lecturer so it is a well-written account of how autism has affected her life. I believe her son Nat, who has autism, was around 13 at the time the book was written so it covered everything from the initial diagnosis to family dynamics as time passed. Reading it helped me gain perspective. Can you recommend any similarly enlightening books about autism?

John’s Individualized Education Plan has a total of 35 objectives administered among several different programs covering communication, social, behavioral, and self-help skills. He’s been on a structured program like this since the age of 3, and his schooling is year round save for the 5 weeks of vacation (never more than a week at a time) he gets per year. Needless to say, Julie and I are amazed and proud of how hard he works. We look forward to each monthly meeting to learn of his progress.

For example, one of the objectives of his “Pointing” program is “Across 2 people and 2 setting, John will point to request out of reach desired items which are up to 6 feet away in 90% of opportunities as summarized across 2 weeks.” Well, this is one of the goals he has mastered, meaning that he’s met the goal for the year way ahead of time! Of course, given the workload I’ve just described theres still plenty of work to do, especially with vocal imitation, eye contact, and self-help skills. But we’re hoping that John will continue to Master each of the goals set for these programs, and it’s his hard work and the hard work and dedication of his teachers at school that will help make this happen.

On Saturday, 5 members of the NECC marathon team joined several other charity groups in a 17-mile training run along the Boston marathon route. We began at Mile 9 in Natick and ended at the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library. A few highlights:

• Michelle Richards, our fearless coordinator. Not only did she meet us at the buses to start and carry our bags on the train, but she also waited at the finish in 20-degree weather until everyone crossed the line. And to top it off, she treated us to lunch. Thanks again Michelle!
• Water stops. There is nothing better than not having to carry your own hydration. Thanks to the volunteers at all 4 water stops.
• Safety in numbers. Six bus loads of runners were on the route, so there were plenty of people to keep cars in check the entire way. There were more people out for this training run than at many races I’ve done in the past.
• Our team. Great spirit and attitude as always from Leon, Jen, Mark, and particularly Tom who I chased all the way to Boston.

Running on the route was fantastic. Hopefully we can do it a few more times before April 21.

What did folks do before mapmyrun.com? I know what I did – got in my car and drove around. When you’re planning marathon training routes that’s a royal pain. Thanks to this site those days are over. Route mapping sites have been around for a couple years. Gmaps is popular and just last year I was using the USA Track & Field site. It was ok, but I did run into a couple of instances where the map was wrong and a street that appeared to cross through was a dead-end. That’s no fun when you’re running.

The best feature of mapmyrun is “Follow the roads.” You used to have to click a lot to follow the streets on the map or just live with the inaccuracies of cutting corners. Creating a 15 mile loop took a long time. Now the software does it for you. Routes also include elevation so you can see where you’re going to suffer most. And unlike USATF it has a full screen mode making it easier to see a wide area. There is some annoying auto-centering, but that’s easily stopped by a click. I would like to see the addition of a drag-and-drop re-routing feature like Google and Yahoo maps have.

I currently rely on mapmyrun for both running and cycling. There’s a separate site called mapmyride that uses the same database so all your maps are in a single list. I even print out the maps and carry them when I’m in an unfamiliar area. I do suspect it won’t last much longer as an independent site. They appear to generate revenue through ads, but there aren’t a lot of ads on the site. My guess is Active.com will gobble it up. I hope it lives on. At least until April.

Here is an ABC news story on a family in Utah with six kids on the Autism spectrum:

Raising Six Kids With Autism

The chance of having siblings with autism is 15%, so six on the spectrum is extremely rare.