and are Friends

[Guest guest]

People Magazine

May 29, 2006

& Are Friends

by Jerome

is 13. She gets A's and likes AC/DC.

Benito is 15, has autism and surfs the Internet for Mickey

Mouse.

In school is 's mentor.

Turns out he's taught her a thing or two

On a brilliant April day and Benito-eighth

graders at E. Weightman Middle School in Wesley Chapel, Fla.-

pile off the bus with the rest of the kids for a field trip to the

Grand Prix Tampa amusement park.

Racing around the go-cart track, racking up points in the video

arcade, the two take a break for lunch-and then it's on to other

attractions.

, says, " is fun to be with. "

He also has autism-and the bond , 15, and , 13, share

would have been unthinkable just a few months earlier.

Hanging with her friends, would join in the laughter when they

spotted -whom some kids call " the retard " -flapping his arms,

starring at his fingers or emitting one of his ear-piercing shrieks.

But last spring signed up to be a peer, one of 20

eighth graders paired with a developmentally delayed classmate, both

to increase tolerance at the school and to give the delayed students

a chance to see " mainstream " behavior close-up. For and

, it was the start of something special.

" HOW CAN WE EVER BE FRIENDS? "

To , an honor student and keyboard fanatic who listens to

AC/DC, the program for which students get a class credit, looked

like an easy A. But once she and the other mentors were chosen from

a pool of 75 applicants, wondered how she was going to get

through a 48-minute class every day with . Didn't kids like

him just scream and bang their heads against the wall? Taking her

seat next to him in the back of Illeana McCallum's second-

period math class for the first time, " I was terrified, "

says. " He wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't even look at me. They told

me friendships form, but I'm like, 'How can we ever be friends?' "

Then, a couple of weeks into the school year, and sat

together in the school's courtyard. She laid her fraying blue

backpack-a hand-me-down from her older brother-next to 's new

brown one. " I was just rambling on about my weekend, " says. " I

said something about Busch Gardens. He looked up and repeated it

back to me: 'Busch Gardens.' It was the first time he looked at me

when I was talking to him. That was the best feeling. "

" KATIE MATH "

At 8:20 a.m. on a cool March day, and take their seats

together for math class-or " math, " as now calls it.

and , whose story first appeared in the St. sburg

Times, have been together eight months and have settled into a

routine. Joining them is Suzanne Madden, a trained aide who,

according to state law, stays with him throughout the day.

is wearing a T-shirt that says All-American Rejects (one of

her favorite bands). " Get your math boot, , " she says.

Unnoticed by classmates, he retrieves a third-grade-level workbook

and a calculator from the desk drawer. Other students in the class

are learning fractions and decimals; works on simple

division. He stares at the page in front of him; after a few

minutes, , figuring out that the long-division format of the

problems is confusing, rewrites them using a division sign, and

starts punching the numbers into his calculator. After a

while, he yawns and curls up his legs. " , feet on the floor, "

says, adding, after he silently complies, " Thank you. "

puts his head on the desk.

" , put your head up, " Madden tells him. No

response. " , do your math. " Nothing.

looks at . " No math, , " she says. 's head

pops up. " Yes, math, " he says, picking up his pencil and getting

back to work. " Good job, , " says.

is one of 10 students with autism in school, but only he and

his brother ph, 14, attend mainstream classes, at their mother

Nila's insistence. has two other student mentors who attend

art and mechanical engineering classes with him, but everyone, from

Don Fowler, the school's behavioral specialist, to , a

speech teacher, have noticed and 's rapport. " From the

first time I met , I could tell, she just knows what to do with

him, " says. " And he adores her. "

And by getting a daily object lesson in how typical kids behave,

says Fowler, is acquiring social skills: walking in the

hallways with another person rather than lurching ahead, using a

tissue to blow his nose, learning not to stuff his mouth with food.

MICKEY MOUSE

Along with autism, has obsessive-compulsive disorder. He

gets hooked on things-his former elementary school, Denham Oaks, or

the bright red Macintosh in room 519, the school's computer lab-and

will speak of nothing else for weeks at a time. And Disney is a

constant.

In speech class, surfing the Internet, which he does ably,

quickly finds what he wants- " The Best of Disney: 50 Years of Magic " -

as watches him. Then, later in math class, she pulls a

storybook from a nearby table and points to a character.

" Who is this, ? " she asks.

" Mickey Mouse, " he calls out.

Experts have written books about joining in whatever it is an

autistic child is doing-rather than forcing them to abandon a

repetitive activity-as a way to make a connection. hasn't read

them. She just knows .

" He likes the dictionary too, " declares. " If you ask him to

read it out loud, he will-really fast. We're working on getting him

to slow down. "

" MY BUDDY VINCENT "

It was lunchtime, and the kids in the Weightman cafeteria were

sitting in the usual groups: jocks, chic girls, goths. headed

to her table, at the margins of " the popular zone " to eat with her

friends. On this fall day, though, she brought a guest. " This is my

buddy , " said. " He's in my second-period math class.

He's cool. " explained that people had to make an effort to

talk to , asking him simple questions. It took a few

days, but a few kids started to say hi when satdown. " Hello,

hello, hello, " came 's reply.

" I used to laugh when people called retarded, " says 's

friend Brittany Fallon, 14. " Now I think he's kind of like everybody

else. " And without trying, has helped shake off some

of the angst of middle-school life. " When you're a teenager, there's

so many things you worry about-what will people thing of the way I

act, dress, the music I listen to? " says. " When I'm with

, none of that matters. "

" NOT EVERYONE FITS IN "

Except for the amusement part outing, and have never

gotten together outside of school, though they hope to once they

coordinate schedules. worries about what will happen next

year, when, because of zoning, she goes to Pasco High School and

attends Wesley Chapel High School-and what the years to come

will hold for her friend, " It's sad to think somebody who I know is

capable of so much may be underestimated his whole life and probably

end up working a stock boy someplace, " says , who hopes to be

a writer someday.

She's confident that somehow they'll remain friends. She recalls

last Christmas, when, at a class celebration, gave her a

bunch of presents-reindeer socks, lip gloss and a bracelet of purple

stones. " It was really special, " says. " I plan on keeping them

forever. "

On March 21 spoke about her year before students in her

language-arts class.

" Being in middle school, " began, " many of us become rude and

judgmental of one another. Not everyone fits in. In fact, more

people get left out than fit in. And one of those people on the

outside is .

" Because he has autism, many of us think he isn't normal. But the

truth is, he is more normal and even smarter than some of the people

I know. After a while with him, I start to forget he has a

disability at all.

" As this year has passed.I have gained patience and acceptance. I

just hope that one day society can learn the same lessons and

understand that people with autism are just like you and me, with a

few minor differences. After all, can you really define normal? "