Small and strange

Alexander Gromov, or just Shurik, has been living with an autistic spectrum disorder for 23 years. He lives with his family in an ordinary apartment of the sleeping area of ​​St. Petersburg. And sometimes it moves to the apartment not simple, but a training. There, Shurik, with the help of tutors, along with other students learns to fry chicken, go to the store and make friends

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Complex choice

Shurik stops at the shelf with paste. The one that is eaten, not the teeth brush. Fekki, Fuzilli, Conquillani, they are also bows, spirals, shells. Anyone will have difficulties with a choice, and for a person with races to find, among the variety of spaghetti, it is like winning a battle. With yourself.

Shura makes garbage photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Today, on the side of Shurik, the tutor of the "training apartment" Masha is fighting. She tells the student that from this it is necessary to put in the basket. Learning to go to the store is a frequent request for parents of children with autism. Shura began to go shopping with a short list of three points. Now it has a dozen products: spaghetti, two apples, minced meat, cheese, milk, cookies. Shura rewrites everything necessary from the adapted list of products in pictures for a piece of paper.

The task for today is to buy food for breakfast and the next day dinner for all guests of the “training apartment”. From Monday to Friday, Shurik and three other people with RAS live in a bright apartment of a conventional new building. In one spacious room - boys, in the other - girls. The weekend is spent at home. And so four months.

Shurik finds the road to the universe and vice versa without hints, perfectly orient himself in the store and knows that apples lie in the fruit, not household chemicals. Despite astigmatism, myopia and farsightedness at the same time, Shura lives like a sighted person. Shurik almost never hears even with two hearing aids.

Shura in a creative workshop photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Apples in the presence of a couple of varieties, Shura copes with this immediately. And the choice of cookies is just as difficult as the study of rows with paste. Masha tells again. And Shura takes a large pack of “anniversary” with dark chocolate “for the whole family”.

An interesting boy

Shurik has a family: parents, younger brother, grandparents. But it would be more correct to say that the family has Shurik. Because he likes to be independent. Mom Tatyana says Shurik is dissatisfied when his relatives are linger in a "training apartment."

- He likes there, this is his space. He feels him even more than our house. When I or my grandmother bring him there, he suffers us for ten minutes, and then begins to wave his hands - they say, leave.

A rare person with Ras feels more or less confident in an unfamiliar environment. Shura has a different story. He was born seven -month.

Shura on the way to the center "Anton here" photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

“They still told me in intensive care, they say, we have an interesting boy,” Tatyana recalls. - All babies shout to meals, and he after.

Little Shurik often traveled to the doctors: an optometrist in one place, ENT in another, a neurologist - in the third. With mom - to one doctor, with a grandmother - to another, with dad - to the third, and to visit - always with his parents.

- When it turned out that he was an autistic , we thought for a long time why he had no increased anxiety when changing the situation, like others. Then they realized that regular visits to classes, guests, clinics benefited.

Tatyana turns quite freely with the word “autistic”: “If I say eight words about every brother -in -law, it will turn out too long.”

In childhood, Shura did not respond to the “okhoko-thief” developing fine motor skills, and simply took his hand to avoid physical contact. For people with races, this is normal. In two and a half years, he put toys in the same rows. Parents measured the tailor meter: according to the ideal straight line, at the same distance in a certain order, Shura placed fifty toys from the kinder scurry. This skill is also found in autism, but it is not clear what application to find it. Now Tatyana says that wonderful abilities are leaving as Shura becomes more adequate in communication.

Shura at games in the center "Anton here" photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Despite the obvious signs of disorder, Shura was made by the diagnosis of atypical autism only in the sixth year.

- Before that, the doctors thought that he was just deaf and stupid. It was approximately the 258th diagnosis, I have already passed the diseases scheme more than once. Therefore, for me it was not a shock, but a direction of work. Now I’ll cry for one day, and tomorrow I will need to do it, ”my mother understands soberly and adds:“ And still the diagnosis has become serious grief. ” Maybe even greater than the threat of mental retardation. Because in the second case, methods of interaction and training are better worked out.

One who cannot

In the presence of races, it is difficult not only to go for bread, but also to just communicate with relatives and friends. Tatyana says that the word "friendship" is not about Shurik at all. Nevertheless, their relationship with the youngest for six years old brother Misha is most like friendship.

- When Shurik went to school for hearing impaired children, Misha painted in his notebooks. And when Misha went to school, Shurik decided all examples for him.

Shura goes to the "training apartment" photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Shurik became a nanny for Misha, for hours he did what his parents usually lack patience. Again and again he gave him a rattle or taught him to crawl, until Misha fell and fell asleep. Shurik taught Misha, and Misha taught Shura. With the advent of his brother, Shura not only allowed his mother to make him a “forty-first-hand”, but also made her Misha. Now Misha walks with him and goes to the store. “They are cool together,” my mother is satisfied.

Shura grew up, but continues to study. Previously, Shura either did not notice people, or resolved all issues in the contact method. If he had to get something from above, stood on a man sitting on a chair. If something did not like something, I pushed it. Now, if a person does not look in his direction, he can quietly touch his shoulder, and not just push him away, not paying attention to the reaction. This is the merit of a "training apartment."

If the hearing aids saved Shura more than once, they allowed to hear the car crason and stop in time, then the tablet with a special program helps to “speak”. On the screen - pictures with signatures, they all express different needs and desires: “Give”, “Bring”, “I want”. In different folders lies everything you need, whether it is food or clothes. Photos and names of tutors - separately. By pressing the icons in succession, Shurik is a proposal that is voiced by a male voice: "Masha give me candy."

Shura photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

But the main difficulty is not in the voice acting of needs, but in the expression of love. “It is completely incomprehensible whether Shura is attached to us or not. I perform a “swearing” function for him. He is comfortable and familiar. But I have no reason to say that, ceteris paribus, he would choose me, and not my best friend, for example. He does not know how to hug, because he does not relax. But there is a need. After all, the autistic is not the one who does not want, but the one who cannot. "

Addition and drawing

This year, Shurik was a second time in a “training apartment”. And now he can much. And he was taught not only to use the donated tablet. Tatyana lists the achievements of the second shift. Firstly, Shurik stopped afraid to cook on a gas stove. He himself wanted to cook fried chicken legs with spaghetti for dinner. The tutors have prepared a step -by -step recipe for him. Shurik does not perceive complex sentences poorly, therefore, for simplicity on the left, the table is written in the table, on the right - the corresponding picture. A month later, Shurik’s culinary master classes prepared dinner at home for the whole family.

Shura on the way to the "Training Apartment" Photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Secondly, Shurik became more persistent.

- Usually he washed the dishes immediately after eating, and he could tear out the plate until they got it. Therefore, at first we taught him to wash the dishes for a year. And then for two years - do not wash the dishes at once and do not worry about this. After the "training apartment" he first left dishes in the sink. I washed one plate, turned off the water, waved the “so far” and left the dishes until the morning. This is a very important skill. So Shura translates the awareness of his “I”, which is violated in him.

Mom is sure that after the second shift in the "training apartment", Shura became older. But sometimes it seems to her that the son did not grow up and he does not need it, "because it is a little and strange in our world is easier than being big and strange."

Shura at a disco on the occasion of the end of the training shift in the apartment photo: Valery Zaitsev for TD

Big or small, Shura likes to collect logical puzzles, leaf through a large culinary book, multiply and fold. It soothes him. Just now, Shurik writes on a sheet examples for the addition of three -digit and two -digit numbers. The answer writes in a couple of seconds. Coloring mandalas is also a way to relieve anxiety.

The project "Training apartment" is important for people with autism and their loved ones. “Training apartment” is one of the few projects that adults adults with autism adapt to the social environment. So far, there are very few students. The Center “Anton here is nearby” is very necessary for regular donations so that the “training apartment” continues to work. Even a small amount will help Shurik as it as he is to adapt in the world.