nice article

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Don't recall seeing this article posted on the listserves... nice article- GREAT

idea.

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Jacquielynn Floyd

Supper club gives autistic kids a helping of inclusion

09:37 AM CDT on Friday, April 11, 2008

IRVING – It's the second Tuesday of the month and 11-year-old Sammy Han can

barely contain his excitement. It's Supper Club night, and he's meeting his

friends for dinner.

" I'm having french fries! " he sings out – Sammy loves fries – while his buddy

Mason Mearse, 9, carefully studies the menu before choosing the same dinner as

always, macaroni and cheese.

This is unremarkable fare at a standard-issue suburban chain restaurant, an

early dinner because there's school tomorrow. But for Sammy and Mason and their

friend, Ben Spiritas, all children diagnosed with autism, it's a very big deal.

At Supper Club, they feel the blissful pleasure of belonging.

The club was created by Hawkins, a pediatric therapist for Our Children's

House in Coppell, an outpatient clinic for special-needs kids operated by Baylor

Health Care Systems.

Many of the kids works with have varying degrees of autism, which is

characterized by a deficit in social skills. She can teach them to look people

in the eye, to make simple conversation, to follow the basic rules of social

interaction – but she can't fix the awful isolation they feel, day in and day

out.

" It's so sad when these kids tell you they had a birthday party, and nobody

came, " she said. " It's hard on them, and it's hard on their families. "

Imagine, for instance, being the mom of a boy who came home from school not

long ago and miserably reported on his day. In a determined effort to strike up

a conversation with a girl in his class, he had volunteered that he liked her

handbag. The girl's response: " Get away from me, you creep. "

Just hearing this story made my heart hurt. In the merciless tribal

segregation of the middle-school social order, this sweet-natured, gentle boy

(whose mother sadly shared this anecdote) is doomed to permanent outsider

status.

At Supper Club, though, these children are very much insiders. Parents bring

the kids – anywhere from two to 10 usually show up – but they have to sit

elsewhere in the restaurant.

and fellow therapist Valdez sit with the kids, but the children

have to order their meals, interact with the waiter, and pay the check

themselves.

The kids are quirky, and they're relentlessly entertaining. Autistic children

tend to follow their own individual trains of thought, which makes for plenty of

conversational non sequiturs.

" Do you like Roquefort? What do you like it on? " Ben abruptly asks. Sammy

volunteers: " I'm allergic to grass! " Mason leaned toward me and, staring at the

floor, confided: " This is very fun. "

It's no accident that the kids who like Supper Club the most are a generally

common pre-teen age: They've reached the inevitable realization of their own

difference. " Sammy does seek out social opportunities, but he doesn't know how

to go about it, " said his mom, Han, who sat at another table with her

other two children. " 'Til recently, he wasn't aware he was missing out. But now

he knows other kids get to go to play dates and birthday parties. "

Supper Club is partly therapeutic: " Miss " and " Miss " patiently

issue automatic reminders to " Look up here when we're speaking " or " Chew and

then talk, remember? " But more than anything, it's a social event for children

who have precious few of them. I wouldn't have known if one of the mothers

hadn't mentioned that Miss and Miss are working off the clock.

They're not paid for Supper Club – it's their present to the kids they work

with.

I suppose they're among that gifted elite that has the wisdom and the vision

to love innocence and sweetness, even when they're presented in an

unconventional package.

Maybe such people are life's compensation in an unfair world. Interestingly,

the Supper Club often meets at the same Chili's restaurant in Irving, because a

favorite waiter – a young guy named Josh Wann – seems to have that same gift. He

was patient, kind, entirely unperturbed by the kids' sometimes unexpected

behavior.

" I just think it's awesome to get to spend time with them, " he told me,

shrugging, as if he had lucked into waiting on a celebrity or a big tipper

instead of a tableful of kids with noticeably odd mannerisms.

Supper Club is about skills practice, and about learning how to fit in – but

those benefits are secondary, said. It's really about belonging. " They have

friends. They can talk about doing things together, " she said. " It's worth its

weight in gold. "

Speech TX julie_slp@...

www.julieslp.com

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