Learning to Hug

My two sons have severe autism. We also have a daughter in the middle who is typical. They are 13, 10, and 7 of age.

TJ is the youngest. One of the thing's TJ has always done, that is more typical, is imitate (sometimes). Mind you, this is not something often observed in autism.

His older brother does not imitate. Or, if he does, it's over extremely long observation with hand-over-hand. I don't call that true imitation. I think we're just writing directly to muscle memory for later retrieval. It works, but it's very tedious for everybody.

In fact, if I were to identify a single thing that defines autism, it is the lack (or diminishment) of "monkey see, monkey do."

Now, maybe that's just my own limited observation, but it fits.

TJ's favorite movie, right now, is The Incredibles. I let him pick which movie to watch, and he always picks that one. Used to be Finding Nemo. Before that, Toy Story III. Before that, it was Wreck-it-Ralph.

When he watches these movies, he imitates them. He will try to say the lines and they don't always come out. But he really likes acting out the action.

Lately, as of about three weeks ago, TJ has learned to hug. I don't know if many people can possibly realize how huge this is. Real hugging. Like this:

In fact, exactly like that. He's imitating the movie.

The fact that his hugs are a direct result of imitating a cartoon doesn't bug me in the slightest. Everyone imitates. TJ can't make the connection with people as easily. The characters on the screen allow him to imitate like everyone else.

Maybe it's because the screen is more interesting and colorful. Or maybe the characters are more simplified and easier to process.

I'm not sure and I don't think I care. He hugs now.