In Their Own Words
Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.
This essay was written by a mother of a boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum whose success in overcoming his fear on the slopes opened up a whole new world for himself and his family.
Jesse's Story
Jesse, our eleven-year-old son who is at the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, loves to ski. Because the ski resort at Mt. Snow, Vermont, has an adaptive ski program with an outstanding reputation for its work with children who have developmental and/or physical disabilities, we decided last year to rent a ski condo for the winter season. Jesse, along with all the other children in the program, would get one-on-one instruction for two hours each day. Jesse's main problem was that he was terrified at the prospect of taking a chair lift to the top of the mountain. This, of course, had limited his skiing over the years to beginner runs on the lower half of the mountains. We thought the program would be ideal for Jesse, who could benefit from the individual attention as he tried to overcome his fear.
After several lessons with different instructors, Jesse was paired up with Shelly, who was determined to help him move beyond his fear and progress with his skiing. We felt we left him in good hands and went off to ski by ourselves. Later, to our utter amazement, we saw Jesse beneath us descending the mountain from the top! When we reached him at the end of his lesson, Jesse was barely able to contain his excitement, so we heard the story from Shelly. Apparently unable to convince him on her own, she enlisted another instructor to help. Together with one on either side of him on the chairlift, they encouraged him and together helped him off the chair at the top of the mountain. At that point, they worked with him to continue practicing his usual stem cristy moves, albeit much slower now because it was much steeper. Jesse, seeing our expressions of happiness and pride, exclaimed, “I am a man now! I am a man!” And if skiing from the top of the mountain at that moment meant manhood, then Jesse had truly arrived!
This accomplishment seemed to have a domino effect. Suddenly it was as if the ability to go to the top and ski down opened the entire mountain to him. Not only had he become a navigator of the slopes, but tackling his fear seemed to unleash a new confidence in his verbal and social skills as well. He began to play trail map games in the car with his seven-year-old sister, Rebecca, figuring out which trails would be open that weekend and which would be closed depending on the snow conditions. They discussed the different runs in terms of which were the favorites and which chairlifts you would need to take to get to the various trails and on and on. They talked in the car about it. They talked at night until the wee hours in their sleeping bags about it. They made games out of choosing parts of the mountain and testing each other on which runs they could take to get there. This was Jesse and his sister engaged in conversation—reciprocal, meaningful conversation—about a common interest. It wasn't video talk, it wasn't Jesse singing to himself, and it wasn't one-way, self-directed conversation. This was a whole new side of Jesse, and we were thrilled.
We invited Jesse's cousins up for a weekend. Rachel is thirteen and Sam is eleven. Sam knows of Jesse's disabilities and yet, like most children, he doesn't quite understand what's “off” about him and how best to relate. Therefore, at the beginning of the weekend, Sam approached Jesse with a combination of hesitancy and at times condescension. However, as the weekend progressed a wonderful thing occurred. On the mountain, Jesse led the pack—including his cousins, his sister, and me—down the mountain, rooting everyone on, complimenting Sam on his snowboard talents, helping Sam when he fell into a snow bank, and applauding Rachel as well. Everyone had a smile on his or her face. It was wonderful to see. Sam said to me back at the house that Jesse was so nice and complimentary of him. Jesse had developed a new role—group leader and encouraging coach. His confidence soared even further.
Jesse and Sam began to have the whole trail map dialogue. They planned which routes they'd take the following day and why, and what were other ways to get to the same destination. Had I been an outsider, and not Jesse's mom, I truly believe I wouldn't have known who was the typically developing child and who was the child with special needs. The joy at watching this interaction was indescribable.
Later in the season, and many lessons later, Jesse and I went up the chairlift to the top of the mountain. As we were going up, we noticed a deep mogul run below us that looked like it was created to wrench and sprain ankles. I immediately started imagining a way to ski around it in my mind when Jesse commented about how fun it looked. I said it was too mogully and I thought we should ski adjacent to it instead, on the flat terrain. Jesse promptly jumped in with, “Mom, don't be scared. You can do it. Just give it a try.” Again, I tried to wriggle out of it, but he persisted. I must say his adventurous attitude was inspiring. Sure enough, when we got to that section I tried it so as not to let him down—but ultimately ended up going around. However, I watched in admiration as Jesse slowly but bravely traversed the entire steep mogully terrain as I waited. Again, another accomplishment under his belt.
With Jesse's new accomplishments of the season he eventually announced that he no longer wanted to ski one on one with his instructor but instead wanted to ski with a group of kids. Thus, with his own adaptive instructor, he joined an inclusive group of same-age children with another head instructor and skied with them for the remainder of the season. While he wasn't necessarily looking to find friends in the larger group, he felt great just being included with them.
Overcoming his fear of going up to the top of the mountain on the chairlift was just the beginning of Jesse's achievements that season. He was growing up, in so many ways. Needless to say, inspired by our son, we have decided to rent for another season at Mt. Snow. We can't wait to see what happens next year!
This essay was written by a mother of a boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum whose success in overcoming his fear on the slopes opened up a whole new world for himself and his family.
Jesse's Story
Jesse, our eleven-year-old son who is at the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, loves to ski. Because the ski resort at Mt. Snow, Vermont, has an adaptive ski program with an outstanding reputation for its work with children who have developmental and/or physical disabilities, we decided last year to rent a ski condo for the winter season. Jesse, along with all the other children in the program, would get one-on-one instruction for two hours each day. Jesse's main problem was that he was terrified at the prospect of taking a chair lift to the top of the mountain. This, of course, had limited his skiing over the years to beginner runs on the lower half of the mountains. We thought the program would be ideal for Jesse, who could benefit from the individual attention as he tried to overcome his fear.
After several lessons with different instructors, Jesse was paired up with Shelly, who was determined to help him move beyond his fear and progress with his skiing. We felt we left him in good hands and went off to ski by ourselves. Later, to our utter amazement, we saw Jesse beneath us descending the mountain from the top! When we reached him at the end of his lesson, Jesse was barely able to contain his excitement, so we heard the story from Shelly. Apparently unable to convince him on her own, she enlisted another instructor to help. Together with one on either side of him on the chairlift, they encouraged him and together helped him off the chair at the top of the mountain. At that point, they worked with him to continue practicing his usual stem cristy moves, albeit much slower now because it was much steeper. Jesse, seeing our expressions of happiness and pride, exclaimed, “I am a man now! I am a man!” And if skiing from the top of the mountain at that moment meant manhood, then Jesse had truly arrived!
This accomplishment seemed to have a domino effect. Suddenly it was as if the ability to go to the top and ski down opened the entire mountain to him. Not only had he become a navigator of the slopes, but tackling his fear seemed to unleash a new confidence in his verbal and social skills as well. He began to play trail map games in the car with his seven-year-old sister, Rebecca, figuring out which trails would be open that weekend and which would be closed depending on the snow conditions. They discussed the different runs in terms of which were the favorites and which chairlifts you would need to take to get to the various trails and on and on. They talked in the car about it. They talked at night until the wee hours in their sleeping bags about it. They made games out of choosing parts of the mountain and testing each other on which runs they could take to get there. This was Jesse and his sister engaged in conversation—reciprocal, meaningful conversation—about a common interest. It wasn't video talk, it wasn't Jesse singing to himself, and it wasn't one-way, self-directed conversation. This was a whole new side of Jesse, and we were thrilled.
We invited Jesse's cousins up for a weekend. Rachel is thirteen and Sam is eleven. Sam knows of Jesse's disabilities and yet, like most children, he doesn't quite understand what's “off” about him and how best to relate. Therefore, at the beginning of the weekend, Sam approached Jesse with a combination of hesitancy and at times condescension. However, as the weekend progressed a wonderful thing occurred. On the mountain, Jesse led the pack—including his cousins, his sister, and me—down the mountain, rooting everyone on, complimenting Sam on his snowboard talents, helping Sam when he fell into a snow bank, and applauding Rachel as well. Everyone had a smile on his or her face. It was wonderful to see. Sam said to me back at the house that Jesse was so nice and complimentary of him. Jesse had developed a new role—group leader and encouraging coach. His confidence soared even further.
Jesse and Sam began to have the whole trail map dialogue. They planned which routes they'd take the following day and why, and what were other ways to get to the same destination. Had I been an outsider, and not Jesse's mom, I truly believe I wouldn't have known who was the typically developing child and who was the child with special needs. The joy at watching this interaction was indescribable.
Later in the season, and many lessons later, Jesse and I went up the chairlift to the top of the mountain. As we were going up, we noticed a deep mogul run below us that looked like it was created to wrench and sprain ankles. I immediately started imagining a way to ski around it in my mind when Jesse commented about how fun it looked. I said it was too mogully and I thought we should ski adjacent to it instead, on the flat terrain. Jesse promptly jumped in with, “Mom, don't be scared. You can do it. Just give it a try.” Again, I tried to wriggle out of it, but he persisted. I must say his adventurous attitude was inspiring. Sure enough, when we got to that section I tried it so as not to let him down—but ultimately ended up going around. However, I watched in admiration as Jesse slowly but bravely traversed the entire steep mogully terrain as I waited. Again, another accomplishment under his belt.
With Jesse's new accomplishments of the season he eventually announced that he no longer wanted to ski one on one with his instructor but instead wanted to ski with a group of kids. Thus, with his own adaptive instructor, he joined an inclusive group of same-age children with another head instructor and skied with them for the remainder of the season. While he wasn't necessarily looking to find friends in the larger group, he felt great just being included with them.
Overcoming his fear of going up to the top of the mountain on the chairlift was just the beginning of Jesse's achievements that season. He was growing up, in so many ways. Needless to say, inspired by our son, we have decided to rent for another season at Mt. Snow. We can't wait to see what happens next year!
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