Juggling Autism: The Chronicles of Ben Royko

If you have or know a guy/gal like our Benny Boy, you might appreciate why my jaw just dropped hard enough to loosen a few teeth. (Remember, as far as Ben is concerned, if left up to him, all foods

Catching up with February on its last day of the year… Ben hoofing it back to the car at Presque Isle in Erie yesterday on a record breaking February 18th. —————- Karen, with tray in hand, is finally approaching the

These are weird times. Our apartment building in Cleveland, where we are every other weekend when we come in from Chicago to see our disabled son living in a group home, has a TV room or party room or whatever

The lobby of Ben’s psychiatrist’s office building has a great skylight, and Ben seemed to get a kick out of Daddy lying on the floor to get a picture of it.

Julie is a terrific music therapist Ben got to know when she would come into his classroom at school to do a session. He loved it. Since he graduated out of school and into adult services, we’ve hired Julie to

6:55 AM God I hate dental check ups and cleanings. Not mine. Ben’s. Heading over to the Cleveland Clinic surgical floor now, the hospital, where he will go under a general anesthetic, which will take seven of us holding him

Mike Royko: Millions in his Firing Squad My father wrote this column the day Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, April 4, 1968. It ran the next day day (the way things worked in the pre-‘net age), April 5, 1968,

Saturday at the Cleveland Art Museum: We came, we saw, we (Ben) tried the emergency exit, we heard the screaming alarm, we conquered, we left. ~~~ As Benny boy events go, this was nothing. It is a great Art Museum,

Ben’s tongue is something he shows to two sets of people: Doctors, and people he really likes. Doctors, of course, because it’s a routine part of an exam, and he likes opening his mouth and saying “Ahhh” when requested, or

Immersed: Our Experience with Autism Bruce and Valerie Hall Published by Visual Summit Review by David Royko Immersed: Our Experience With Autism is the most important book produced about severe autism, ever. “Severe,” as in the devastating disorder of autism,