Father teaches blind autistic son to shift gears

[DRM500RUBYZR-1]

Originally Posted by Tripler

Wonderful stories guys . My son also autistic ,16 at the time , now 23 , I let him drive my 1999 5 speed Honda Civic in a parking lot of course . He took instructions well on how to depress the clutch , move shifter to 1st gear and release clutch slowly . Of course , just like his father does , he hammers it once were moving and laughing at the same time . Well I panic of course and as trees at the edge of the parking lot are getting larger , I pull the handbrake hard , reach over and turn the key back once which kills the engine but gives us steering . Once stopped I was also laughing . Oh . I also forgot . When he was 6 and becoming a little bit vocal I let him drive the car for a few feet in front of our house . Like when he was 16 10 years later, he took instruction perfectly . He depressed the clutch , moved the shifter into first and then let the clutch out slowly . he said these exact words . Look , I'm drivng ! I was one proud father . We never thought he would become verbal but my son has a wicked sense of humour which has really got him to open up . He loved it when I would do trip and fall tricks . Thankgoodness he does not ask me to do that anymore . Don't think my body could take it . Adam now has learned to use the gas lawnmower and cuts our lawn plus 2 of of our neighbours . I also showed him how to use the snowblower and he also snow blows the driveway in the winter .He can do this now all unsupervised . You show him once how to do something , and he does it .For myself I have be shown many times to learn a new skill .He has used table saws , drills , cut saw , and I will be showing him soon how to use the weed wacker . He rides on my motorcycles with me fearlessly . I had no idea what an Autistic child was capable of until we had Adam . I knew nothing of the Autisim spectrum . But over these last 23 years Adam has amazed and made me proud many times over . He is also an avid swimmer and has many medals from Special Olympic swim meets . So a lesson here is to never underestimate or think a person with a disability cannot do things . There much smarter and have a more logical mind then any of us will ever have lol . There just plain amazing ...

Your son is certainly not the only amazing person in that household.


Marty

[FU]

You guys are great !!!! Very inspiring , thank you