Song of the Month

In recognition of Autism Awareness Month, our Song of the Month is from a very special CD. This track titled Understanding, speaks to the feelings of many children, not just those with autism. Songs of the Spectrum is offering a special this month, download the CD for a donation of $1 or more to one of their charity partners. Visit www.SingSOS.org to make your purchase and donation.

Understanding
(J. O'Neil & J. Fried)

We can help children grow, one by one. But can we make the world grow up? Of all the things we’d like to provide children and adults on the spectrum, the one that should be the easiest is often the hardest to come by: acceptance. To a large extent, that depends not on us, but on the woman behind us in line at the zoo, or on the man at the next table in a restaurant or anyone making those signals we humans give off to indicate who is part of "us" – and who is not.

Acceptance – not of limitations but of difference – can be the first step to understanding, and understanding promotes acceptance. From some people this flows naturally, without hesitation. From others, well, not so much.

Fear, of course, plays a role in that – the fear of the not-like-me.

Acceptance and understanding can be issues for parents of ASD children as well. Every one of us wants – oh, what an understatement – our child to develop as many cognitive skills as possible, to emerge as an independent adult. With a developmental disability in which it is constantly unclear where a child will "end up," it is easy to focus on a child’s weaknesses, on what he or she can’t do. It can take an effort to step back and look at their strengths, however different those may be, and to remember that whatever they can or can’t do, they are who they are.

Understanding

Don’t need to know to understand
Don’t need to understand to know what’s wrong
To have an open heart
To see what
Not everyone can see
Not everyone can see

There’s a boy inside
Who’s having fun
Maybe maybe of a different kind
Like anyone
Maybe maybe he’s lost inside
No more than you
Loving hearts can see what loving hearts can see

There’s a boy inside
Understanding
There’s a boy inside
Understand that
There’s a boy inside
Locked away, mocked away,
Talked away, not tossed away

There’s a time, there’s a time,
there’s a time to let go all
All of things that used to meet you
when you crashed the walls
There’s a door just now appearing
though it’s not very high
And a window you can see it in the corner of his eye

More Songs! - Past Song of the Month

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