Julia's Blog

We've all heard about the blog posts of students regarding the tragic shooting and death of 32 at Virginia Tech University. Here in the Philippines, blogging jumped into the news also because of Julia Campbell, a US Peace Corps volunteer who went missing around 10 days ago in a barangay in Bananue, Ifugao, right in the area of the world famous rice terraces.

Yesterday, a body was found just 30 meters away from path which tourists usually take, and which appeared to have been hastily buried. In all likelihood, it is the body of the US Peace Corps volunteer. Last night, a tv news program reported about her blog and how it gives us a glimpse into her mind.

Searched for the blog this morning and found it downright haunting. In the heading she dedicates her blog to "those who could not be convinced to follow me into the Peace Corps" and welcomed them to her new adventures here in the Philippines. Her last post is entitled "buhay pa tayo".

From her blog, it appears that she's been here for some time, knows how to speak Filipino, was in her apartment in Legaspi, flooded up to the her waistline, when typhoon Reming ravaged the Bicol area and later on troubled by activities of the famous Mayon Volcano. She even wrote about the visit of her parents who took the time to see what she's been doing here.

No doubt she's a good person. It is so sad that her stay here in the Philippines had to end in death, possibly violent. For those curious, read her blog at Julia in the Philippines. Please don't forget to say a prayer for her after.

When children become adults

Or more specifically, what happens when autistic children become adults. This is something that us parents will probably agonize on for the rest of our lives.

There is Gabby who was misdiagnosed for years and had to go through school from elementary to high school to college, and then work for years only to get dismissed, before he was correctly diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrom, a form of high-functioning autism. At 46, he has photographic memory, can draw a portrait in less than five minutes, but dreads parties and finds falling in love and telling jokes perplexing.

There is also Mikki who at 22 dances with arms flapping and swinging left and right whenever and whereever she hears bouncy music, drawing stares and sneers from our fellow Filipinos. When she becomes aware of these stares, she throws a tantrum, beats her head and bites the back of her hands which is now heavily scarred. This unkind attention pains her mother who tells us that in Switzerland, where they lived for 14 years, people left Mikki alone, apparently aware of her condition.

There is Gabe, now 20, a library science college student at the Centro Escolar University who was talking in sentences as early as 2 years old but started talking less and less and diagnosed with autism at 3. He then went to a diagnostic program, had therapy sessions, and went to a regular public school in the United States where they lived. Her father said his condition forced them to stay there longer in the US because they realized that the Philippines is 50 years behind in teaching kids with autism and other disabilities.

And there is Francis, a 17 year old with autism, who got away from his mother Aling Ruby at SM Megamall and tried to go into a movie theater showing a Harry Potter film only to get bullied by the cinema security for trying to get in without paying. He was turned over to the mall security who kicked him out of the mall. He drifted for 15 hours around the area while his mother went crazy looking for him.

Despite his condition and all other obstacles, our goal is for our child to be independent and for him to reach his full potential. Already we are seeing good signs. But we are aware that this can very well be a lifelong battle for us, a battle in the sense that there is very little help and understanding out there from Philippine society.

Talk about autism

As a parent, I needed to know about autism quickly. I found out that autism is a developmental disability that severely hinders the way information is gathered and processed by the brain, causing problems in communication, learning and social behavior. It typically appears during the child's first three years, in roughly 15 to 20 of every 10,000 births, and is four times more common in males than females.

One time I attended a family support session held by the Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP) and the parents there generally agreed that the problem with autism is that the affected children look normal, pretty much like every other kid you know. No doubt this one of the reasons why some parents remain in denial for quite some time, delaying much needed intervention.

For kids affected with autism, language develops slowly or not at all. They use words without attaching the usual meaning them and gestures to communicate to others. They also have short attention span. As to social interaction, they spend time alone rather than with others, show very little interest in making friends and are less responsive to social cues such as eye contact or smiles.

Kids affected with autism have unusual reactions to physical sensations such as being overly sensitive to touch or under-responsive to pain. Their sight, hearing, touch, pain, smell, taste may be affected to a lesser or greater degree. They also do not exhibit spontaneous or imaginative play, do not imitate other's actions and do not initiate pretend games.

As an aid in the diagnosis of autism, Prof. J. Rendle-Short of the University of Queensland Brisbane Children's Hospital, Australia, designed a checklist of 14 behavioral signs and symptoms. No single item is significant alone but if a child exhibits 7 or more of the traits, a diagnosis should be seriously considered. See the checklist here.

To know more about autism, visit the website of the Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP) and this website by a parent who is affected with autism. Illustration above was taken from the ASP website.