If you saw my recent post on the arts, it won't surprise you that my husband and I felt strongly about getting Brooks piano lessons from an early age.

Of course, we had to immediately rule out the neighborhood flyers with tear-off phone numbers—our little boy with big challenges would need a customized setting, and considering his fine motor skills delays, we were pretty uncertain about the wisdom of our decision.

Where would we even start to look for an appropriate teacher? Although googling "autism piano teacher nyc" does return the standard millions of results, we wanted to take a shot at the least restrictive environment, so we followed up on a mainstream referral from a friend. Turns out there was a woman who taught some home-schooled friends of friends and who coincidentally lived only five minutes away from us. And when the introductory "he-has-autism" phone call with her went well, we put on our cautiously optimistic hats and took him to his first lesson.

This was in no way a slam dunk, to use a metaphor my Lin-tastic sports fanatic son would approve of. Two very large greyhound dogs lived in the piano room, and although they were sweet and friendly, this was not exactly ideal for our highly distractable and slightly dog-phobic son. However, Karen was game to keep going—she didn't mind that Brooks refused to sit on the piano bench with her, instead hiding shyly on the other end of the grand piano. We watched her struggle to figure out how to talk to him and how to interpret his slight answers, and we were thankful for her efforts.

I have to admit that my hopes were not high: although in theory I liked the mainstream path, in practice I saw that Karen had no direct experience working with autistic kids and I just couldn't see this working out. Worse than that, I wasn't just worried that Brooks would lose interest, but that a negative experience would affect his love of music. In retrospect, I'm thankful that my husband disagreed with me and felt strongly that we continue. "Trust your instincts" is all well and good, but I'm often reminded that no matter how right they feel at the time, they are, in fact, fallible—or at least mine are.

Four years later, Brooks is a fairly typical piano student in the sense that he loves to complain about practicing but when he finally does, he plays well. I'm sure he's not as far along as his typically-developing peers, but we've stopped making those comparisons.

He has a lovely relationship with Karen, who has since moved out of our neighborhood but continues to teach Brooks. She is completely accepting of him when he avoids the piano by lying down on the floor and she always answers politely and patiently each of the five or six times during the half-hour lesson when he asks: "Are we finished yet?" She once told my husband and me that she is less concerned about teaching him to play the piano as she is with ensuring that he enjoys the experience of making music.

Our experience with Karen has prompted me to consider the people who have been instrumental in helping my son and those that may help him in the future—specifically the ones without any autism credentials at the end of their names. Our list would have to begin with Patricia, who began as a babysitter when Brooks was 10 months old. She didn't just take him from therapist to therapist—she carried over all their recommendations on a daily basis as effectively as my husband and I ever did. She is a naturally gifted teacher and easily incorporated the autism specifics she was exposed to into her repertoire. She clearly brings so much more than babysitting to any family with a diagnosis.

My close friend Laura is another example—not only is she a gifted yoga teacher, she is more adept at living in the moment than any grown-up I know. She has had some autistic students, and I would argue that her lessons are as valid as any occupational therapy session—any child with or without autism benefits from her unique creative energy and keen sensitivities.

I'll end this post by happily bragging about my piano-playing son—our deal, of course, was that he practice until 6:25pm:




_ Author's Note: Although Karen is not currently accepting new students, feel free to contact Patricia or Laura about working with your children. Email Paticia at patricia7a@optonline.net and Laura at fades@aol.com._