Layden's Lineup

By Jessica Wray

At the ripe age of 3, the only things greater than the smell of fresh cut grass and the freedom of the great outdoors is a good movie – Monster’s Inc. – and the vibrant color orange.

Layden Vaughn loves his trampoline. The small, one-person contraption rests in the living room, and his mom says he can’t get enough of it.

On Facebook, there’s a video of Layden – small snapshots of his personality shown in bouncy, chaotic energy that only toddlers know how to harness, and a cute, cheeky smile. He does this little dance, with his hands on his hips, his upper body waving back and forth to an unheard beat playing in his head.

In one part of the video, Layden cradles two handfuls of toys carefully, like every child does in the ever-frustrating process of having to move your toys to the perfect play spot. He hugs them close to his chest, the Monster’s Inc. action figures sticking out in all sorts of angles from his small hands.

He sets them down on the table, his perfect play spot.

But Layden doesn’t make any noises. He doesn’t bang them together in an unseen battle between Mike, the one-eyed monster, and the big, blue and purple-spotted Monster’s Inc. character.

Instead, they’re lined up carefully. In a perfect, neat little row.

Because, his mom says, Layden doesn’t play with toys. He never has.

At 12 months, she said, he was on track with other children his age physically, but wouldn’t talk, nor would he try too. High anxiety in social situations – even with family – gave her another reason to suspect something might be off about her little boy.

At 18 months, Layden’s line of toys began in earnest.

When Layden was almost 2-years-old, his mother, Rachelle Vaughn, 26, took him to a pediatrician, where the doctor put her in touch with First Steps, an Indiana program that works with very young children. They told Vaughn Layden had a sensory processing disorder – a disorder that effects how the nervous system takes in and decodes messages through the senses, and transmits to motor skills and appropriate behavior.

“They said that he qualified to have them work with him until he was 3,” Vaughn said. “They worked with him for a whole year. He had speech, occupational therapy, and developmental therapy.”

Each therapy session, she said, was once a week for an hour. She noticed improvement, but had always wondered if there was a different explanation for Layden’s problems.

“When he turned three, it was actually almost a year ago, it was at his big meeting,” Vaughn said. “(His therapists said) that he, without a doubt, had autism.”

One in every 88 American children are on the autism spectrum, autismspeaks.org says. Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a general term for various complex developmental brain disorders. And on the Autism Society of Indiana webpage, they say the numbers are higher – “according to a new government report that found that 1 out of every 50 school-age children – roughly one on every school bus – has the condition,” the website says.

  According to autismspeaks.org, a website dedicated to the national advocacy and awareness for autism, says “these disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. They include autistic disorder, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified , known as PDD-NOS, and Asperger syndrome.”  

Since Layden received a straightforward diagnosis from his therapists saying he has autism, it’s been an uphill battle for the Vaughn and her husband, who also have a 2-year-old son, Cooper.

The problem, she said, isn’t that there aren’t any programs for autistic children in her area, or that there isn’t anyone willing to help – it’s about finding ways to pay for treatment.

“He just recently got into ABA therapy. Before that, as soon as he turned 3 last fall, he started in developmental preschool, because we couldn’t get him into ABA therapy with our state insurance,” Vaughn said.

ABA therapy, or Applied Behavior Analysis, is a treatment commonly used for children with autism. Behavior analysis works with how learning takes place. A common tool used in ABA is positive reinforcement.

One exercise his therapist uses with Layden, Vaughn said, includes giving Layden a snack or a toy, and telling him he has to wait to pick it up or go to it.

“He’s up to 10 seconds,” Rachelle said.

And she was proud. For Layden, who is energetic and always moving, 10 seconds is a huge accomplishment.

But paying for this kind of treatment is pricey.

Vaughn said she called everyone. No one was willing to help her, she said. Their insurance company would tell them to call someone else, and then someone else again. It was a never ending circle of run-around phone calls.

So, she said, they had to get off state insurance, and they went with a private company instead.

Now they pay for insurance out-of-pocket. It’s what they need for Layden’s therapy, and to keep seeing him progress, she said.

And progress he has.

Franklin College student Morgan McClellan, a junior journalism major and Layden’s aunt, said Layden has made strides since starting his therapy.

When he eats, she said, he’ll take one bite of a chicken nugget, run around for a minute, and then come back to the table to take another bite.

But now, she said, “He’ll be able to sit at lunch for 25 minutes.”

And that’s not all.

For a child who wouldn’t speak, and didn’t seem to want to try a year and a half ago, Layden now says short, fragmented sentences, that he enunciates pretty well, Vaughn said.

“He has started talking. He communicates what he wants with words now,” Vaughn said.

And the shining moment for her, she said, was something many other parents take for granted.

“Love you, mom mom,” he said, in a clear voice, not disjointed or higher pitched like his broken speech had been previously.

It was his “I love you,” in the clear voice of Layden, something Vaughn had never heard before.

“I cried, and I held him for like an hour. I knew it was in there.””

The therapy has been working, she said, and she hopes more people come to understand what autism looks like, and know that it’s different for everybody.

“I don’t want to change who Layden is,” Vaughn said.

And McClellan agrees.

Him lining up his toys, she said, she thinks is his way to cope. It’s something that he’s figured out how to do on his own.

It’s not just autism awareness any more, it’s autism acceptance, and autism appreciation. You shouldn’t just be aware of it and try to fix it. Autism isn’t something that I believe anymore should be cured,” she said.

At the recent lecture given by Elaine Hall, “Parenting a child with special needs: A spiritual journey,” junior Natalie Miller asked Hall a question and addressed the crowd. Her insight into autism comes from a special relationship with the topic. Miller has autism.

“I feel that what’s between our ears and what’s inside our ribcage is more important than a doctor’s diagnosis,” she said.

She asked Hall, “How do you get neuro-typical people to try and enter your world?”

“I know my entire life I’ve had to look at the real world and I’m glad that I do have the insights that I have, but it’s my world and how I perceive things. And it’s like people treat it as if it doesn’t matter. No one takes the time to really try to see where I’m coming from. I can tell from how they’re talking, they’re wanting to get it over with. I feel this almost every single day, with even people I know care, and it hurts me. How do you get people to understand you when they’re not interested to begin with?”

In response, after a moment of silence, Hall said it’s time to “stop looking at the deficits, and start looking at the assets.”

It’s the things Layden does that people consider is autism that makes McClellan see his special gifts.

“You slowly figure out that all the things that they do that are autism, are the cute things they do. Things that you don’t want them to ever change. I think the most important thing to know is that for people who have autism, they shouldn’t be any different than who they are.”

Vaughn, McClellan, and their family have started a fundraiser as part of Autism Speak’s awareness campaign, a walk in Indianapolis June 15.

Those interested in donating, or learning a little bit about Layden and his family, can check out their Facebook page.

Their team is named Layden’s Lineup.

At 15

At 15, I found myself mostly alone.

High school was supposed to be the time my best friend and I would strike it big. We’d promised each other we’d grow old together, with houses next door and identical front porch swings. We’d make crude jokes back and forth from across our lawns, and be Godmothers to each of our children.

But after the first month of our freshman year, my best friend fell into a world that I would never follow her to.

Self-harm and alcohol use was something she did semi-frequently in junior high. But those were things I could overlook. I told myself I could help her get through that – or that she’d grow out of it by the time we hit high school. She went hit highs and lows I never got as a pre-teen, and became even more confusing later.

But at 14, she had started going to parties where cute guys would offer her pills, to make her feel bright and shiny and good about herself. She’d told me numerous times she’d woken up on a Friday with bruises she never remembered getting.

And no matter what I did, or who I told, nothing helped her.

Ever hang-out night became a lecture, or a conversation about how her actions were hurting herself. She didn’t want to hear it.

So that’s how I became isolated during one of the roughest parts of a person’s teenage years.

Dropping the ball

It was a 50/50 chance I ended up in J-1, the introduction to journalism class all students were required to take before they could join newspaper or yearbook. I had to choose an elective, and it was either J-1 or the introduction to broadcast.

I had always loved writing, so I threw my hands up in the air, and put it down as my elective choice.

But about four weeks into the class, I despised journalism and hated every single part of the course.

AP style was my worst nightmare. I didn’t understand any of the rules, and I couldn’t get why it was important at all. We would do worksheets upon worksheets with confusing questions, with multiple-choice answers that all looked the same.

I was so frustrated by the class that I would come home once or twice a week and cry.  I’m still up tight about my grades and GPA in college, but back then my grades were my life.

My mom told me if I was that upset by the class, then maybe it was time to drop it. She wasn’t happy that I was quitting, but she also understood the tears weren’t going to stop any time soon if I didn’t jump ship.

So I went to my guidance counselor and got an add/drop form. I had it filled out and signed. It was ready to go.

I just needed my teacher, Carmen Mann, to sign off on the sheet.

When I approached her after class, a bit distraught and uneasy about asking her to drop the class, she looked at me a bit astonished.

You want to drop? But why?

I just couldn’t get the material, I told her. I asked so many questions in class. Everything felt ambiguous and vague, and I always needed clarification. There wasn’t a class without me raising my hand five and six times with questions. My classmates were starting to get irritated and I was starting to feel like this just wasn’t for me. I kept running into a brick wall that wasn’t coming down any time soon.

Is it the fact that you ask so many questions that bothers you? She asked me, trying not to smile. At the time I didn’t know what she was getting at, but looking back now I know she was going somewhere with this line of questioning.

It was. I hated that I was the only one in class that seemed to not get anything. We hadn’t started writing yet either, and I could just imagine myself falling behind even more when we started that unit.

That is, until Ms. Mann gave me a little jolt of encouragement that up until that time, no other teacher had given me freshman year.

You ask questions, yes, but they’re good questions. You’ve got curiosity, which is what you need to be a journalist. You should really, really stick it out. I think you’re going to do great when we get to the writing part.

Coming from this teacher, I was floored. Ms. Mann was known to be hard on her students. In those few weeks of class she’d cussed in class – I’d never heard a teacher do that before. I couldn’t believe she’d said “shit” and “damn that” in front of children. She was strict and unforgiving with AP style mistakes.

She had bouncy blonde hair and a bright round face. She had a backbone of an attitude but an easy laugh. She was intimidating at the time, and I had been frightened to ask her about dropping her class.

I never thought she would or could see something special in me.

But she did, and that little bit of encouragement, to someone who had just lost her best friend, her sister in all but blood, did wonders for my soul.

So I stuck it out, and a week later, we began writing.

Writing

You could tell how much Ms. Mann loved writing by the way her face lit up, her voice got stronger and she could pound out writing notes to us like she had them memorized a decade earlier. 

She took the writing module of our class extremely seriously. We would take our notes by dictation -- she said this was the only way we'd learn to take notes quickly, and to learn what voice modulation sounds like in relation to how fast a person talks. She wouldn't repeat more than once, sometimes twice if you asked nicely, and she would never slow down.

Writing in that class was baptism by fire, and I was a newly charred believer. I loved every minute of class -- from the notes on how to ask questions and how to form a lead, to the strict, no-nonsense attitude of Ms. Mann's -- I was hooked.

I remember one exercise -- and I still have the worksheet -- that required my class to come up with questions relating to a hypothetical high school athletic team scandal. I thought, and thought, and was so excited to come up with what I would ask the mythical coach and principal.

We all took turns reading the questions out loud in class, and I was one of the last ones to go. I remember after reading mine, Ms. Mann looked at me proudly, and told the class if anyone ever needed ideas for questions, they should ask me.

It was the first time anyone had noticed me. And Ms. Mann was my new hero. She cared, and she thought I had potential. For someone pretty lost and lonely, that meant the world.

From then on, I would stay after class and talk with Ms. Mann about my work -- how to do better, what I could do for newspaper. I wanted to write, and keep writing until my fingers fell off. 

Ms. Mann was one of those teachers that knew how to take a flailing student and pick them up. She wasn't just our teacher, but she was a mentor, our psychologist. She was our friend.