Meet the Parents

Abstract

Leslie became a member of APSG in 2009. About six months prior to the beginning of her membership, she had met Sarah in a pediatrician’s office in Queens, NY, when Sarah’s daughter Ava, who had been diagnosed with autism a few years prior, was “having a meltdown.” When autism parents talk about “meltdowns,” they are referring to loud, violent, inconsolable crying fits that can often start with little warning. Unlike a temper tantrum thrown by a small child who wants a toy she can’t have or one who doesn’t want to leave a party—that most people have witnessed—when children diagnosed with autism have melt-downs, they are often a result of new environmental stimuli—a high-pitched noise that no one else can hear, the touch of a texture that their sensory system feels invaded by, or the result of an internal manifestation that they cannot communicate about, such as a headache or a stomachache.