Free The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett Page A

all benefit from a good night’s sleep, I put Jake into his Volkswagen Bug bed and was surprised when I couldn’t entice him to lie down. Perplexed, I called Michael into the room. We tried to coax Jake to lie down, but as usual he just ignored us, instead watching the shadow on the wall. There was no clock in Jake’s room, but at eight o’clock sharp he lay down and pulled the covers over himself.
    “Oh, my,” I said to Michael. “The shadow on his wall—it’s a clock.”
    We tested my theory on subsequent nights by throwing towels overthe cable box and the kitchen clock and turning our bedroom alarm clock toward the wall. Every night, Jake put himself to bed at exactly eight o’clock—not at 7:57 or 8:03, but at 8:00 on the dot.
    Our bedtime routine had become very precise. Like many autistic children, Jake liked the events in his life to be predictable. So I’d always do exactly the same thing when I tucked him in. I’d lean over, kiss his forehead, and say, “Good night, my baby angel. You’re my baby angel, and I love you.”
    When he was small, he’d hug me back, but over time he’d become completely unresponsive. People ask what the hardest thing is about having an autistic child, and for me the answer is easy. What mom doesn’t want to hear her baby tell her that he loves her or to feel his arms around her? And then one night toward the end of the summer, about six months after we’d started making those trips out into the country, my wish came true. As I was putting Jake to bed, I leaned over to kiss him, and to wish my baby angel good night. Completely without warning he reached up and hugged me back.
    I will never forget that moment as long as I live. It was the first sign of affection, or even interest, he had shown toward me in more than a year. I was in a state of complete shock, hiccuping back the sobs, scared to move in case he’d stop. I could have stood there forever, tears streaming silently down my face, his little arms tight around my neck.
    And then, his sweet breath hot in my ear, my son spoke for the first time in eighteen months. And what he said was, “Night-night, baby bagel.”
    Through my tears, I started to laugh, and once I’d started, I couldn’t stop.

A Step Backward
    A ll the gains we’d made over the summer were incredibly encouraging. It had even been a little bit fun. But the summer came to an end, and when it did, special ed began. Off Jake went to developmental preschool.
    Right from the beginning, these life skills classes felt wrong to me. In regular preschool, the first days include an emphasis on helping the kids separate from their parents for the first time. But there was no such luxury with special ed. Instead, the little yellow school bus showed up outside our door the first day, Jake got on it, and then several hours later the same bus dropped him off at home. What happened in the hours in between remained largely a mystery to me.
    To be fair, I suppose the separation anxiety was more my issue than Jake’s. With the exception of that one heart-melting bedtime hug, he still barely acknowledged my presence when I was in the room, let alone when I left it. But as a parent, it was terrifying to put him on that bus. At three and a half, he was so
little
—still a baby really. And although he had begun to speak an occasional word here and there, an actual conversation with him was still unthinkable. Jake couldn’t tell me about his day at school, about what had happened or how he felt. He couldn’t share any of his fears or anxieties or concerns. On any given day, I couldn’t even tell if he’d liked his lunch. So I had to put my trust in the system.
    Unfortunately, maintaining that trust became increasingly difficult.I had nothing to go on except how Jake acted when he was at home, and what I saw filled me with doubt. He wasn’t improving. In fact, it seemed to me that he was losing some of the gains he’d made over the summer. By summer’s end, I had