A positive racing story in the local paper today

Today's cover story on the Poughkeepsie Journal: Racer's focus: Autistic boy finds passion on track

At the age of 2, Ethan was diagnosed with autism, an affliction that impairs social interaction, complicating verbal and nonverbal communication. One in 68 kids are affected, according to the most recent data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010. April is National Autism Awareness Month.

In the years since his mother, Lisa, first noticed "a definite difference in his progressive levels" learning to crawl and walk later in life than average children, she said, Ethan has received physical, occupational and speech therapy. But, one source of therapy has worked better for him than most.

"Typically, a child who has autism, they tend to focus on one particular thing that they like to do the most. For some, it's dinosaurs; for Ethan, it's racing," said Kari Foley, an occupational therapist who works with Ethan at Fishkill Elementary school. "Everything is about racing. He's physically able to see it, feel it, smell it. It makes it all the more cool for him."

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/sports/2014/04/25/racers-focus/8176467/

And I bet he'll be much better at it than many others.

That's great.

Awesomeness. Glad to see it working for him.

God knows my boy focus's on Thomas the Tank Engine enough. It is amazing how much he knows and how detailed he is.

The upside is he has started writing stories...

I've worked with autistic kids. If they are into pennys, well, you need to be hard core about pennys. I'm glad he and his parents found his passion.

Good for him! I hope he does great and can inspire a lot more kids in the future.

Thanks for sharing this.

Much like in this story

i wonder how many people will write into the paper to point out how dangerous it is and how the parents should be arrested for child endangerment...

novaderrik wrote: i wonder how many people will write into the paper to point out how dangerous it is and how the parents should be arrested for child endangerment...

Unfortunately, probably quite a few... Because it's obviously better for the kid to surround him with bubble-wrap, protect him from everything, and just let him regress, because that's the safe route.

I'm going to make it a point to follow this kid's progression. Sounds like he has a pretty damn nice network of people in his life who realize the difference that racing makes in his life.

Thanx, Wally, for posting this.

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