He was a
peaceful child, chubby, loveable and never sought any kind of attention. He
never cried for anyone to lift or play with him. There was nothing peculiar
about Christopher Komo. He sat, crawled and walked at the right time. However,
at one year and eight months, he had limited speech. His vocabulary was made up
of only three words i.e. yokya, come in and ne touché pas. He never said mummy
or daddy.
“People
wondered why he delayed in speech but it did not bother me because one of my
cousins began speaking at seven years. I was hopeful that Komo would speak
given time,” Elizabeth Kaleeba, Komo’s mother said.
At two
years, Komo’s grand-mother suspected him to be autistic. He had no interest in
other children, preferred to be alone, threw tantrums and had several
behavioural problems.
“I did not
give it much thought until he was four. I began my journey of acceptance and
after carrying out lots of research on the internet, many things fell into
place,” Kaleeba recalls.
Then the
doctors confirmed that he was autistic. He only said ‘good morning mummy’ when
he was 12 years old. He is currently 14 years of age. His words come and go and
he is very sensitive to noise.
When Komo gets upset:
When he was
first taken to school, Komo was extremely aggressive. He broke a window and
beat up other children. A child at the school often got nightmares of blood and
it was later discovered that he was beaten by Komo. His mother says it was a
challenge going with him in public places because he would throw tantrums.
When he gets
upset, he undresses and stays stark naked regardless of where he is. Kaleeba
confesses to moving with leaflets on autism which she distributes to people in
case her son throws tantrums and has to explain to staring people.
Kaleeba’s worries as a mother:
Although she
would have loved Komo to grow and become independent, with autism, he is never
going to be that. Whether he will be able to attract girls of his age is one of
the many fears gnawing at the strands of her heart.
“There are
times when he draws pictures of a man and woman kissing and I wonder what goes
on in his mind. Recently, he picked a flower and gave it to a girl and I kept
wondering how he is going to deal with these urges,” Kaleeba reminisces.
Also, he has
issues with bathing if the water is cold and so, he turns on the shower and
lets it run and if unsupervised, he will not bathe.
Autism facts:
Autism is
neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a triad of impairments meaning
that each individual experiences varying degrees of impairment in social
interaction, communication, and ritualistic behaviour or rigid thought
processes.
“The
symptoms of autism can occur by themselves or in combination with other conditions
such as blindness, mental retardation, deafness and epilepsy,” Owino says.
According to
Prof James Tumwine a paediatrician specializing in child health at the College
of Health Sciences-Makerere University, autistic children display
characteristics such as: poor social interaction often preferring to be a lone,
often non-verbal, have particular obsessions like that for water or grass,
laugh un-ceremoniously, indicate need by gesturing, avoid eye contact, their
interaction is often one-sided preffering to be about themselves and they have
no real fear of danger.
They are
described as being "locked in their own world."
“The most
frustrating thing about autism is that there is no cure and standard approach
or one way to treat and connect with someone who has the condition,” Prof
Tumwine says.
Challenges of teaching autistic
children:
According to
Kaleeba, the social stigma our society attaches to autistic children is so much
so that there are no schools for them.
“It is still
hard to find schools that will allow interaction between autistic and
non-autistic children because the latter will always be rejected,” she says.
While living
in Switzerland, Komo attended nursery school but instead of going to class with
the other children, he preferred to sit in the school’s compound. Never in his
two years did he enter a classroom.
Emmanuel
Kalanda, an occupational therapist at Mulago Hospital says the greatest
challenge in autism education is that of lack of knowledge among school
teachers.
“Instead of
handling each individual personally, they tend to treat them like the others
and even force them to do things the others do hoping they’ll eventually grow
out of it,” Kalanda says.
There is
also general confusion about autism. Teachers do not realise, for example, that
the challenging behaviour can be accompanied by high intelligence. Although it
dawned on Kaleeba that her son will never be academic, she has no disappoints
as he has turned out to be gadgets lover and can quickly correct a problem with
phones, cameras or computers.
“Teachers
need to understand that children like these achieve milestones through
different ways like Enoch who can now speak Luganda fluently despite being
addressed in English,” Kaleeba, the Founder and Coordinator of the Komo Centre
in Entebbe says.
She adds
that autistic pupils make the most progress when teachers provided an
individualised programme that addresses specific social, personal and learning
difficulties. Owing to this fact, the Centre comprised of nine autistic
children out of 30 pupils teaches independent skills like numbers, laying beds,
doing dishes and washing clothes among others.
Kaleeba says
the centre has an Individual Education Plan for each pupil involving their
parents which starts with an observation period for three months. The social
life and interests of the child are studied in this time.
This is
followed by physical education that goes on from six months to one year where
the child is taught mass skills for example how to use instruments, beading,
pottery and making cards some of which will help them earn a living in future.
Komo’s good progress:
After six
months of rigorous training of teaching him how to brush his teeth, Komo now
knows how to do it. He can wear his clothes and even match them with different
shoes although he won’t wear long sleeved shirts or trousers.
“He knows
how to make his bed and clean every nook and cranny of his room and I hope this
habit stays with him to the end-he is extremely clean and observant about
hygiene,” Kaleeba says.
He is also a
good swimmer, a skill he learnt through observation, navigates the TV channels
to watch his favourite cartoons and loves communicating with his grandmother on
phone although it is just, ‘Nana, it’s me Komo.’
ninsiima@observer.ug
