Stepping Stones: Our pathfinding adventure with Asperger's

By Tim Herd, Carol Herd and Philip Herd

Stepping Stones is a first-person narrative of one family’s raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the persevering and progressive self-development it provoked. From the distinct advantage of countless wayfinding steps more than twenty years in the making, the parents and grown son recount their initial ignorance and vulnerability to emerge as an inspirational example of perseverance, growth and success.

As the first student in the school district diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, the son unfortunately became the blunt instrument of change it required but didn’t know it needed. Despite advances in diagnoses, therapies and other accommodations, many systemic inequities against the neurodivergent remain to be dismantled. This book introduces the concepts required to continue organizational change. And to all parents and caregivers of children with ASD, this true tale offers pragmatic guidance, self-help encouragement, and real reason for hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385010721

Tim Herd

Tim Herd is the CEO of a statewide professional membership association and the founder of its Leadership Development Academy. He is an author of Kaleidoscope Sky, Maple Sugar: From Sap to Syrup, and Discover Nature in the Weather. He is a speaker, advocate and father. You can find more of his writing at scene-herd.com and connect with him at linkedin.com/in/timherd. Carol Herd’s career in physical therapy has spanned pediatrics to geriatrics, including patients on the autism spectrum. Her most fulfilling role is as a mother and family champion. Philip Herd is a research engineer, physicist, mathematician, and self-taught master of several computer languages. He has a master’s degree in physics from the University of Idaho. His gift of Asperger’s Syndrome has both hindered and enabled his successes. You can find more of his writing at orthallelous.wordpress.com.

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stepping

stones

our pathfinding adventure with Asperger’s

Tim and Carol Herd

with Philip Herd

Copyright © 2023 Tim and Carol Herdwith Philip Herd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. As presented in the NASB Thinline Bible (2020 Text), published by Zondervan, 2021, all rights reserved.

Front cover photo: Jamie Wilson

Chapter photos contributed by the authors.

Back cover and last page illustrations © Philip Herd

ISBN: 979-8-3850-1070-7 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-1072-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023920293

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/08/2023

Praise for Stepping Stones

from parents and caregivers of neurodivergent children

"I kept wanting to pause my reading to have a conversation with the authors. These people are my tribe.

"Stepping Stones offers a great mix of personal anecdotes and easy to digest information for those new to the spectrum diagnosis.

"I have been very isolated in this journey for several different reasons. One being that I have not found other parents who approach their diagnosed child the way I have chosen to. I guess as different as each person with Autism may be, so are their caregivers. I rarely thought of what was happening as a problem to be solved but instead chose to look at his behaviors as an opportunity to be discovered. The authors of Stepping Stones helped me know I am not alone."

— Melanie Stephens

This insightful story can only be told by the parents and their atypical son. The book takes you on their roller coaster journey filled with heartache, frustration, perseverance, faith and love. Philip’s incredible accomplishments teach us to respect, appreciate and value those who ‘march to the beat of a different drum.’

—Donna Tarola

"With humor and humility, the Herd family share their experience with autism and how they came to be pathfinders. Interwoven with their story are a multitude of tips for understanding and forming relationships with people with autism. The story is at times heartbreaking and more often, heartwarming.

For those of us who have travelled some version of their path, it is strikingly familiar from the aha moment when we realize what makes our child different, to the bullying at school, to being told we are the problem and that we need to better discipline our child. For those who are just starting out on this path, this book will surely be a resource, and likely, a beacon of hope, for it is filled with love and acceptance.

—Rachel Ezekiel-Fishbein

Humorous, heartwarming and heart wrenching, not only is this a story about a family’s journey into the trials and triumphs of Asperger’s Syndrome, it is a story of perseverance, a story of recognizing blessings, and a story of family love and support. A story that will inspire anyone experiencing life with, or as a person with, as Philip quotes Richard Feynman, ‘a different box of tools.’ Savor the walk.

—Donna Longley

To our parents, who invested in us.

To our children, who inspire us.

Passages

Each phase of life can be a stepping stone to progress.

Pathcarvers

Our Herd

That’s Just Philip

Say what?

Socially Ready or Not

An Unexpected Juncture

The Pits

Inadvertent Instrument of Social Change

When the Struggles Become Too Much

Meaningful Pursuits

That Which is Orthogonal

Afterglow

Guidepost 1: Asperger’s Syndrome and ASD

Guidepost 2: Therapeutic Benefits of Nature

Guidepost 3: Selected Resources

Trail Log

Pathcarvers

Trails are portals to a future yet unknown.

From an early age, our son was enthralled with pathways and trails. Crawling on hands and knees, he first plowed them into existence by brushing his forehead and a fist-sized truck through the long shag carpeting. Outside, he’d construct routes and loops through the fallen leaves or snow in the yard—and play in them until his mother got too cold for him and called him in.

His first scribblings depicted not objects, but destinations. His curving, crayoned lines connected with others, which in turn linked to many other purposeful pathways. And as his spatial giftedness developed, so did the intricacies of his routes, maps, mazes, and other convoluted designs.

As a little kid, he often tried to follow painted footprints to an entrance, or all the trails in a park, or colored tiled pathways through a mall to wherever they eventually led. And whenever he learned anything that caught his special interest, he would pursue that trail like a hound on a scent.

Because the journey, apparently, was everything.

As a distinctively oriented individual in a mostly contrary world, he soon split for a divergent track of his own making. And before we fully realized it, we had joined him in the odyssey, unprepared as we were.

From the distinct advantage of countless wayfinding steps more than twenty years in the making, we are now able to tell the tale of our passages. But at the time, we hadn’t a clue to the route, or the fuss we would create.

Most wayfarers, including us, prefer to know where we’re going before we start a journey. We want a navigational chart that identifies a variety of established, safe, and predictable routes. And we want powerful, future-oriented illumination that sharply defines all upcoming turns, tunnels, vistas, and dead ends, so we can keep on schedule, retain our conveniences, and avoid all unpleasantness.

But that’s not the usual mode for most life travelers. Instead of a road atlas, we might have trail blazes, and instead of a floodlight, a headlamp. Only by taking a few steps forward can we determine our next few.

But in such scenarios, someone else had to be the first way-maker through the wilderness, before others could securely wend their way later.

We didn’t ask to be pioneering pathfinders. As the first student in the school district diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, our son unfortunately became the blunt instrument of change it required but didn’t know it needed. And together we hacked a way through unknown territory—at times without so much as a candle flicker to light the next footstep.

For us, it became an arduous journey through a bewildering slough of raising a child who, despite appearing to have every advantage, somehow does not. A child who wants to be happy and fit in, but somehow cannot. A child who has every yearning to be treated respectfully and justly, but is not.

Being born an individual who intrinsically thinks and learns and communicates differently than most of the rest of the world is straight-up hard. It is tremendously challenging and often extremely discouraging. But there are unique benefits of gifted perspectives and proclivities too, often hidden from both that individual and that world, which take patient, strenuous work to uncover, develop, and refine.

The role of the parents, siblings, caregivers and other advocates? That’s definitely hard too, but we have several mitigating advantages: We are not immersed 24-7 in those same first-person problems and can catch breaks for relief. We have much better insight into how society functions, with its boxed-in expectations and limited tolerances. And as such, we are in a privileged position to better interpret between a special needs child and a world whose attention is full on itself.

Yet neither we nor anyone we knew had ever traveled this way before: it’s the pioneers, after all, who push through the hardships to open new territory. Expressed more bluntly: the first through the glass wall gets the bloodiest.

This, then, is the story of the paths we carved while raising a child on a high functioning sliver of the autism spectrum. At first, we didn’t even know the lay of the land, let alone what would confront and erode us along the way. Each step forward was a gritty, stony, stumble in a territory unmarked by directional signs, boundary markers, or GPS coordinates.

And while our story of nurturing a child who is different is distinctly ours (before and after the illuminating insights of a diagnosis), it is certainly not definitive. We also recognize that ours is one of privilege, set as it is in an unbroken, happy, and supportive family, with access to education, culture, and resources that many others have not.

In this aspect, knowing that there are many whose frameworks and backdrops differ considerably from ours, we attempt to be as inclusive as possible, speaking to the basic human aspiration of doing what we can, with what we have, where we are.

We are eye-witnesses to the power to choose a better attitude, to try again, to continue to strive, to wobble toward progress, no matter our starting point.

So we offer encouragement to the great, diversified range of parents, caregivers, therapists, and support networks—as well as the individuals who are on the autism spectrum themselves—as our like-missioned, kindred spirits.

That’s where willful living is done. And where our wayfinding proceeds: amid the clash of personalities and the clutter of