“I’m a female human child,” Alice proclaims as I strap her into her car seat after her first day of school.
Seven and a half years into my parenting journey, I still don’t always fully comprehend the impact of Alice’s words when I hear them. She is minimally or unreliably speaking and often uses an AAC to assist her communication. Without the aid of the device, I easily miss the context of her message.
“That’s right,” I confirm brightly, kissing her nose. I ensure her brothers are buckled into their seats before getting behind the wheel of our minivan to drive home.
After homeschooling for a year and a half, I enrolled the three kids in public school due to their father’s new job out of state. On their second day back, I arrived at the pickup line to see Alice’s aide bringing her to the door and immediately noticed something was wrong. Alice’s eyes were staring up toward the ceiling at an angle, looking as far away from her para as possible. She looked exhausted, and her walk was laboriously slow.
“Hi Alice,” I called out from ten feet away, amidst the din of children and parents around us.
She didn’t look up, keeping her stare firmly up and away. I’d never seen her like this.
Before I could intervene, the para snapped her fingers an inch from Alice’s nose.
“Hey!” She yelled like she was calling a dog. “Hey!”
The snapping continued.
I could see the para was trying to make Alice look up — which she didn’t. There was no reason for her to.
Horrified, I waved my arms to cross over one another in a “No” gesture.
“It’s okay,” I stumbled over my words, shocked beyond the ability to speak. I’d never seen anyone treat my daughter that way.
Hearing my voice, Alice slowly walked into my arms. As I folded her into a protective hug, she looked gratefully up to my face and smiled.
My heart shattered.
She hadn’t needed to look at me to know where her safe space awaited: her mother’s arms.
The incident so shook me that it wasn’t until after we had dinner that I saw the bruises on her forearm: the unmistakable imprint of a thumb on one side and the smaller impressions of fingertips on the other.
Sick to my stomach, I asked her, “Who did this?”
I knew she might not be able to answer.
It wasn’t until I asked her if it was the para, using the woman’s name, that she answered, “Yes.”
In my seven-and-a-half years of parenting, I’ve never once had any of my children tell me that an adult has hurt them somehow. I’d never had any reason to suspect an adult hurt any of my children until September 8th, 2023.
I asked Alice what happened.
Her answer was typically cryptic, yet timid, “I don’t know; something about a Chromebook.”
When Alice uses her energy to speak a sentence with her voice, it’s intentional.
I saw red. Someone had hurt my child; she’d told me who and why. I would go to any length to defend her.
My mind replayed the morning of drop-off. The para had taken Alice’s AAC when I handed it to her and said to Alice, “I’ve got your other computer ready today, too!” Being too tired to deal with ignorance, I did not correct her. But that meant Alice had her Chromebook at school. I was immediately suspicious when I came home to see her twin brother, assigned to a different teacher despite our request for them to be together, had a Chromebook in his backpack.
Alice did not.
I whipped out my phone and took photos of the bruises. My mind was racing. With their father being three thousand miles away, I was on my own. We don’t have family to help and live in a rural area with few friends in the state, leaving our support network behind in Seattle and Maryland.
Furious emails, calls, doctor’s visits, and a meeting with the school’s interim principal and district HR representative followed. The administration had been suspicious about Alice’s AAC since the day before school started. I was told it would not be compatible with the school’s WiFi and discouraged from having her bring it. I insisted she would bring it since AACs do not require a WiFi connection, and her AAC was issued by insurance as an accessibility device.
When I asked to speak with Alice’s case manager after the bruising incident, I was told to expect a call at a specific time. However, when I picked up the phone, the interim principal and inclusion specialist were on the phone instead and proceeded to grill me about the AAC device.
I was told in the HR meeting that the district Chromebook would be ready “that day,” a week after Alice started school and almost a week after the incident. When I checked her browser history, I saw that it had been active on September 8th, when she was bruised.
She wasn’t lying.
By this time, DCF had been out to the school while I kept my children home to protect them. They interviewed the school staff and never asked to see Alice or speak to me. The case was dismissed after the staff told them that Alice had bitten her arm in kindergarten when she was a student there. The ableist assumption was that the autistic kid hurt herself; it couldn’t possibly be an adult — a “trained” staff member — who had put the bruises there. All without inspecting her injuries, interviewing her, or questioning me.
I was not allowed to contact her classroom teacher about the incident. When I tried through the school app, I received no reply. I did not receive a response from any of my children’s teachers.
Meanwhile, I asked for her previous paraeducator to be reassigned to her but was told that Alice would “never again” have her previous aide. It took me a few days to realize it wasn’t a personal vendetta against me; it was because her last para was barely taller than Alice, therefore, unable to restrain her. I was assured a new para was assigned and allowed to meet her at the door before releasing Alice back into the school.
While I could not speak directly to any staff about the incident, her teacher sent home an essay Alice wrote that week. Alice has permitted me to share it in this article.
“One thing I would like to do this year is hug,” Alice writes.
My child is so gracious and affectionate.
Soon after, I received a phone call from the interim principal. I was starting to avoid the phone when I saw the school number show up. After leaving a message about “wanting to check in on something about Alice,’ I ignored it and continued my day.
The following day, the school psychologist asked if she could schedule a phone conference with the contracted occupational therapist.
Picking up the phone for the arranged phone call, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the interim principal’s voice chimed in with the other two.
“The hair clips you’re using are working for now,” the now-familiar voice started.
I had never considered whether Alice’s hair or hair clips had any issues compared to any other seven-year-old child. She’s just autistic, so her hair is autistic, which means it gets scrutinized in ways the hair of her typical peers does not.
Then they wanted to talk to me about Alice’s underwear.
Her underwear showed when laid on the floor, and I needed to ensure she was dressed correctly.
How was I supposed to know my child would be lying on the floor at school? Isn’t she supposed to be sitting at her desk? She only drops to the ground when she’s distressed.
Then, the interim principal told me Alice was hugging her teacher too much and was too old to do that, so OT had been called in. They wanted a solution, so OT suggested a body sock to replace the pressure she was receiving from a hug.
This so blindsided me that I didn’t even have a chance to register that a body sock is a mechanical restraint.
The interim principal complained that Alice “leans right up against the teacher,” and it needs to stop.
I said, with pride, “She’s a very affectionate child,” as I thought to myself, “Most people complain about us autistics not being affectionate enough. We can’t win.”
Alice loves hugs; she writes about love and draws hearts because she is genuine, open, and caring. When she visits the school nurse and has her temperature taken, she wants to take the nurse’s temperature. This is her returning the gesture of kindness. Someone wishing to strap that openness and warmth into a swath of lycra is tantamount to blasphemy.
After thinking about it for a day, I wrote everyone on the conference call withdrawing consent to the body sock. I suggested that they write into her IEP teaching and modeling consent for hugs instead of stifling Alice’s loving nature. How do they handle a typical child wanting hugs? Wanting to hug her teacher means she’s developed a healthy attachment to a nurturing adult. Even after coming home bruised her second day and having someone snap their fingers in her face like they were training a dog, she still managed to love and trust someone at the school.
I knew that, despite having her voice via AAC denied her, being brutally mishandled, treated like a vicious, rabid dog, being criticized for anything to do with her existence simply because she’s autistic, she had found people who cared about her. Her voice was being listened to even though she was denied her rights.
That’s how strong her voice is — because Alice doesn’t just speak with her mouth. Her body is her voice. Her rhythmic movements are her right to free speech. I’ll do anything to protect her right to communicate.
“I’m a female human child.” Alice never says anything without intention; it just sometimes takes me a while to understand her intent. She was telling me how she wanted to be treated and that she wasn’t being treated that way.
Autistics are treated as sub-human by too many who are in positions of power. Yet, my sweet female human autistic child has so much love in her heart despite it all.
I hope she continues to have the loudest hands and feet of anyone I know because the joy she shows with her body is contagious.
