~~Tom Kraus

Autism is a complex information processing disorder that does not come with an owner’s manual.  People who have autism face daily challenges that present themselves to different degrees and can vary day to day. For people who have autism and for people who love someone who has autism, our hopes are high and our actions are tireless. 

There are a wide variety of treatment options that come (sometimes) with pressure to try them all OR to have to pick JUST ONE! With this great love comes a motivation to do all that we can and give as much as we can give. As we all know, not all efforts may produce immediate observable results. You may decide to try taking your loved one who has autism to a new place, try a new therapy or try a new diet and things go awry. It feels bad after the fact. It feels like yet another “failure”, which might trigger feelings of hopelessness.

While those feelings are completely understandable and natural, we have the option of redefining failure so that it keeps us on the road to success. Failure is defined as: lack of success. Not “lack of success forever”, or “I have screwed everything up forever”. It is simply lack of success based on that isolated experience. With each experience, we are learning how to help individuals who have autism progress and develop their unique and full potential. The road is not smoothly paved, but there are experiences that provide insight on how to adjust. “Failed attempts” have purity and lessons in them that take us to the next level on the journey.

What if instead of labeling those unsuccessful experiences as failures, we label them as information? Information about what worked, what did not work and what we have learned because of that experience.

Re-defining “failure” can only lead to great things, as we leave the situation with more knowledge than we had before.