There’s interesting discussions about neurodivergence that weren’t happening 12 years ago when my son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I don’t mean the ones around destigmatizing or inclusion or acceptance. Those are all worthwhile but they’re not new. What’s new is a broader discussion about how prevalent some form of neurodivergence is; about how the patterns we think in are wound into the world we live in. And about how people whose brain function fits less neatly into those patterns can impact the world.
I went on a bike ride with my 15 year old son Aidan today and it triggered a few thoughts about those patterns. I thought I’d share.
Aidan rides a special three wheel bike because he won’t ride a two wheeler. He can ride a two wheeler. He doesn’t though. He has an overdeveloped vestibular system so he can balance on just about anything. While my other two sons are like clumsy dogs who smash into things and rumble around like a herd of elephants, Aidan walks softly on his toes like a cat. He never falls. And never knocks anything out of place. Once at a soccer practice he stepped onto the ball with both feet and just stood suspended to everyone’s amazement.
No shaking. No hands out to balance. Just standing. But he won’t ride a two wheeled bike. Because there’s something about bike riding that doesn’t make sense to him. When you start its wobbly and unstable. But when you go faster it gets easier. It becomes more stable. You’re less likely to fall at high speeds. To understand why you have to understand the physics involved and even then you just have to believe the math. Otherwise you just kind of have to trust that it does. Aidan’s doesn’t have this sort of trust. It’s really hard for him to develop it. And this lack of trust in things he can’t see or feel is at the heart of his disability.
Neurotypical humans have to overcome this too. We’re told that getting started is the hard part. And that once we get going things get easier. But we’re afraid. We often don’t trust it. We feel the wobbly metaphorical bike beneath us at slow speeds. But we don’t believe it when we’re told to just keep going. So we get off. In spending time with autism one finds that we don’t see new behaviors. We just see them applied more rigidly to the extent of disability. And there’s an insight there about the nature of neurodivergence that one tends to come across in the long hours thinking about how to get one’s autistic son to ride a bike. Whatever part of Aidan’s brain that makes him trust that the bike won’t fall over is the same part that makes me not write the next chapter of my book. I’m afraid that I’ll fall.
The neurotypical take so much for granted. The bike path we ride on has two lanes. The left lane is for people going the opposite direction than the people going in the right lane. This holds true if you turn around and go in the other direction. And holds true again if you turn around and go back in the other direction. We pick the sides we ride on based on an abstract social agreement. If we all stay on the right you can trust that no one will crash into you. If someone wants to pass you they can do so but they’re going to have to wait until no one is coming the other direction.
Aidan doesn’t do abstract social agreements very well though. Not in the sense that I just described it. He can be taught what his expected behavior is through repetition, but he’s not going to be told to just stay on the right and everything will be ok. Staying on the right lane puts him closer to obstacles on one side. So Aidan rides right in the middle because it makes sense to put equal space between himself and all obstacles. It’s not that he can’t do the calculus to decide where to ride or that his decision is random. It’s that it’s not based on an abstract agreement.
When someone comes at him from the other direction he moves to the right because that’s the space he has to move into not to get hit. If the person moves to their right to give him more room, he just simply moves over less. This is an autistic impairment. It puts people off that are approaching him. He never hits them. But he’s broken the social contract. He doesn’t value the agreement more than the distance from the bushes or the fence posts on his right.
Aidan chooses to do what he thinks is most safe for him when only he is in the picture. And then he behaves appropriately when someone else enters. But the world wants him to follow the rule. Because staying on the right side signals to others that you’re a rule follower. If everyone rode right in the middle you’d never be able to tell who was a lunatic bent on destroying people in their path. The value of virtue signaling is several levels beyond Aidan’s intellectual development. And he’s not alone.
From time to time someone gets angry that Aidan is on the bike path. As stated, he always proceeds with caution and gives people space. But he doesn’t move fast. And if you try to weave around him aggressively because you’re clearly in the Tour de France, he might get confused and move the wrong way and you may have to slow down or stop. Specifically, if you rapidly come into his lane to pass someone in your lane with the intent to quickly get back into your lane, you’ll find that he’s moved into your lane because when you moved into his lane he didn’t know that you were going to get back into your lane. He doesn’t understand that if you hit him in his lane it’s your fault. And that you will avoid fault.
Today this happened and someone yelled at him and then realized he’d yelled at the special needs son of a reasonably large man and then sped off in a wise act of self-preservation. What’s true of bike paths is true of life. Aidan is an obstacle to those trying to move as fast as they can. There’s not that many of him though. We’ve never seen another one of him when we’re out. And anyone wanting to go as fast as they can will for as long as they can with rare interruption.
I’m sure that nearly every one of the Lance Armstrongs out there on the path today would tell anyone truthfully that they think it’s awesome that Aidan is trying to ride a bike. And that I am an awesome dad for getting him out somewhere and doing it. But they’ll definitely get annoyed that he’s in their way. They can see that he’s got special needs. (15 year old on a three wheeled bike). But they’ll get angry and tell you they’re angry in the moment. Until you tell them they’re yelling at an autistic child trying to ride his bike. And then they feel some level of shame. Though, they sort of knew it already. They were just hyper focused on their own progress.
They’re not wrong. He is an obstacle. But he’s also my son.
A few other things. Women of a certain age are the most likely to smile at us. Men like to shout encouragement. One woman, a mother with a slightly older than toddler trying to rollers skate, apologized to us for ALL the bike riders and how crazy they can be.
When people see us it looks like a struggle. I ride behind him and frequently remind him to keep right. (the middle is the best remember). We’re not struggling though. We’re making progress. In my 12 years of special needs parenting I’ve learned that smiling at people as we pass lets them know we’re not struggling. And lets them know this is a bit of a triumph. And I can see a little lift in them.
These are the human behavioral patterns that stick out when you spend time with the neurodivergent. Something so simple as a bike ride is a complicated social agreement stacked on top of nearly infinite norms, assumptions and considerations. Some of them are useful. Others are less so. And others are just out of date.
It’s an interesting question to ask that when someone doesn’t behave the way you believe they should, why you believe they should act that way? Honest answers to that question get you far. I have to ask that every day around here. And it’s taught me a lot.
Very nice article & interesting on the everyday social agreements we (mostly) all participate in. I also must admit to being perpetually impatient, and it's hard to slow down & give folks space, even those that need it. I'd like to hope article like this make us all more patient & forgiving of those around us, regardless of their neurology.
Sean! This is wonderful (and fascinating!) Thanks for sharing :)