Skateboarding A boy on the spectrum joins a skateboarding group Visual: Pomona, CA Juan Alvarez: Did you get any breakfast? Dominique Alvarez: O.K. Dominique Alvarez: Gee, you sleep like a wild horse at night. How do you tear your bed apart? Carter Alvarez: I don’t know. Dominique Alvarez: You want to wear something new? Juan Alvarez: The periodontist came back and said, ‘Well, you know, we have some news for you.’ That’s what you dread as a parent. He said, ‘Well, your son, he’s going to have something. What it is we can’t tell you.’ Visual, written on paper bag: CARTER THE GREAT Dominique Alvarez: ‘Great news! He doesn’t have Downs’s syndrome, but something’s wrong. We don’t know what it is. Make sure to bring his pictures. Bye.’ Juan Alvarez: We started to notice lack of eye contact. The biggest thing was speech. He was pretty much silent, I would say almost four years, and Dominique noticed it very, very early on. She just had a feeling. Dominique Alvarez: I knew something was different, and they just put us through a battery of tests, and they had us come back and we’re sitting in the room with him, and the woman was just real matter-of-fact and just said, ‘Yep, yep, there’s something wrong. He’s got something called autism.’ Visual diagram of brain, labeled: Major Brain Structures Implicated in Autism Corpus callosum – consists primarily of closely packed bundles of fibers that connect the right and left hemisphere and allows for communication between the hemispheres Brain stem – located in front of the cerebellum, it serves as a relay station passing messages Dominique Alvarez: It actually didn’t matter so much that they gave it a name. It was the fact that they didn’t give us anything else to do with it. Juan Alvarez: I almost didn’t, I almost didn’t want to believe it. It honestly was heart-wrenching. I mean it still, I think it still brings back a lot of emotions. It was very, very, very difficult. Dominique Alvarez: It’s scary when you watch your little baby and he doesn’t weep, and he doesn’t talk to you so you don’t know how to help him. And our families even recognized that he was different, and they actually rejected us. And so we just, we kind of went into this bubble where we had no resources and just had to figure it out. We’ve tried sign language, traditional therapy, water therapy; we’ve tried traditional team sports and it was devastating for him. The parents were mean because he wasn’t competitive. He didn’t play well enough, play hard enough, and he came home and literally said, ‘Mom, I’m a loser.’ A friend of mine, she knew Carter had autism, and she said, ‘Hey, we’re doing this skateboard clinic. Do you think Carter would want to go?’ Visual: A.skate skateboard clinic Juan Alvarez: You know, I was told, you know, from Dominique, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re doing this.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? Are you kidding me? Carter on a skateboard? I mean, the kid falls walking on a flat surface. I can’t imagine putting him on a board.’ Adult Skateboard Participant: Are you all ready to go? Juan Alvarez: The first time he went, it was, it was an incredible experience. Crys Worley A.skate founder: Well, I have a son with autism. When he was five, I brought home a skateboard one day. I didn’t really know how to connect him with that but it just happened. Well, with team sports, kids have to be really social to be able to play on the team and play by the rules and win a game. And with skateboarding it’s an individualized sport and they can do it on their own terms. Whether it be sensory they’re receiving, the pleasure seeking, the social skills, it just makes perfect sense. Dominique Alvarez: We went to this clinic and that was it. He was hooked. He had the bug. Dominique Alvarez: I felt like he blossomed in that moment. For the first time he looked free. He didn’t look back. He didn’t look like anything was stopping him. He just went. Carter Alvarez: I think it just shows your personality, like you, yeah, personality. Juan Alvarez: I can’t change the fact that he has Asperger’s. But I can give him, try to give him the most quote unquote ‘normal life’ that he can. And I think that skateboarding for him is that outlet, is that, you know, he can be just like every other kid on the block. Dominique Alvarez: I wish we had just not bought into all of the, ‘You can try this and do that,’ and just did the more practical, less predictable thing and just threw him on a board.