If I could have ever forget the simple power of the written word (I doubt that any of us really could), I was reminded of it this past weekend.

 My son has Asperger's, which is most aptly described as a unique form of autism. He is a very smart kid, but often loses himself within his own world and fails to appropriately integrate socially with most of the people he meets. As but one example, he will often slip into his own for meditation whithin which he is as far away from me as a person could be while remaining in the same room. In the midts of it he will usually begin what I call his dance where he flaps his arms and seems to leap from one place to the next. Often he is smiling as he does this, which I think is a very good thing.

As another example, while at his sixth grade ice cream social a few evenings ago, a girl in his class said hello to my boy. He did not hear her and she said it again. I poked him and told him soneone was trying to say hi to him. He looked around and saw her say hi, but did not respond. I said to him that he needed to respond to which he said, "Why, I don't know her." The girl was only a few feet away and heard him. I looked at her and her mother and made a joke to which they laughed and the moment passed. While his reaction was rude, to him it is a perfectly logical thing to not say hello to someone you are not friends with. To that point, this is how he interpreted the rules of the social road.

A day or so later I went to the library nd checked out a couple of books so I could get some more ideas on how to help my son. One of them I gace to him as it is written by a 13 year old with Asperger's and is meant to be something of a user's manual for kids like him.

This past weekend I asked my son how his reading was going and he said good. I asked if there was anything in the book that I should know and he mentioned that there was. He said, "Dad, sometimes I have social accidents."

"Like what happend the other night?" I asked.

"Yeah, like that. I think I'm getting better."

I had not yet heard that degree of self awareness from him in a very long time.