but more important, they recognize his willingness to help and his unfailingly positive attitude. He loves any church building and appreciates that churches are special places where God’s presence may be felt. Offer adolescents support and comfort in the form of friendship and fellowship. I believe Joshua views church as a good and safe place where he can always encounter people who will love and accept him. It is one of those comfort zones for him. Even when we visit a church where we don’t know anyone, he is always excited to enter and very politely extends his hand to greet people when appropriate. He has been raised in the church and knows it is part of our family’s routine. He also identifies himself as a Christian and acknowledges that he has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Don’t assume that because an adolescent isn’t looking at the person in the pulpit, or is seemingly not paying attention, that she/he isn’t. We never have to tell Joshua to be quiet, sit still, or pay attention during a religious service. He intuitively knows he should. Even though he often thumbs through a book that we have let him bring, the hymnal, prayer book, missal, or Bible, if you ask him what went on while he was seemingly not paying attention to anything else happening around him, Joshua knows and can recount everything with unexpected accuracy. Joshua wouldn’t be where he is spiritually if it weren’t for the support of many close fellow Christians and members of the congregations of churches we have attended. If I could distill my experience as a parent into a single suggestion, it would be to encourage congregations to allow adolescents with special needs to serve in whatever capacity is possible and appropriate. There also has to be a level of trust and confidence felt by the adolescent if she/he is to feel secure in the calling of service. We all need to feel useful and then to live out that calling among friends who believe in us. There is no greater way to feel God’s love and blessing than to serve Him fully and to our utmost ability. We all need to feel that we are in full service of the Lord. Dr. Lois Spitzer is an English as a Second Language educator, married to the executive minister of American Baptist Churches of NJ, Rev. Dr. Lee Spitzer, and the parent of Joshua, an adult son with autism.
Hannah Herbert, on the occasion of her bat mitzvah
Miriam Herbert We’ve had mostly wonderful experiences in our congregation. We have a 14-year-old daughter with PDD-NOS. Perhaps in the beginning years, people stared at us, until our daughter acclimated herself to religious services, as it took many years for her to be able to sit still for services or to sit for our Rabbi’s stories, but now she can. She can actively follow along and read Hebrew prayers along with the congregation. She may recite them louder than most, causing others who do not know us to look, but it’s all right with them. The Temple clergy and religious school director were very supportive of our daughter’s religious school education, enabling her to stay in a homeroom until the fifth grade, providing a 1:1 shadow for her in her classroom from the first through the seventh grades. She completed the last two and a half years of her religious school education in a special education religious school class on site. Our daughter had a near-typical bat mitzvah service. It was a team effort in achieving her successful bat mitzvah, with each of us, from her 1:1 shadow to Hannah, dedicated to that purpose. There was much rehearsing, plus the Hebrew prayers were enlarged and highlighted to keep her focused. Our friends and others in the congregation were so proud of her. When our daughter was asked to read from the bema this past autumn, along with other recently bar/bat mitzvah students, she did very well and many congregants made sure to tell us so. We feel grateful to have had such heartwarming experiences; I know some of our friends with special needs children have not been so lucky.
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Autism and Faith
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