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Posted by sylvia on Tuesday, November 08, 2005 (19:21:14)
News-Press August 2005
By Maureen Bashaw
The brother and sister who played together in a Fort Myers park have an extraordinarily powerful relationship.
The brilliant late morning sun turned the boy's fair face bright pink and caused droplets of perspiration to dampen his sand-colored hair.
Austin Boyd seemed to be the typical 5-year-old as he pushed himself through a plastic tunnel in the park's playground. Ten minutes or so earlier when his sister, Elizabeth, 15, struggled to hold him as he kicked and screamed, he appeared to be a spoiled brat.
Between those two incidents, when Austin picked up handfuls of playground mulch and watched intently as the rough wood clippings fell through his fingers, he came across as a little odd, out of touch with his surroundings. If Elizabeth hadn't called out to him and diverted his attention, forcefully suggesting he go through the tunnel again, Austin probably would have continued letting the pieces of mulch fall through his fingers as he retreated deeper and deeper into his own, private world.
"Way to go Austin!'' Elizabeth yelled and clapped as her brother walked slowly, like someone coming out of a dream, back toward the plastic tunnel and back toward reality.
"Go Austin. Goooo,'' Elizabeth encouraged.
Austin is autistic, one of an estimated 1.5 million people in the United States with this mental disability, which is often crippling. He's one of the thousands who can't cope with the stimuli of the modern world.
Elizabeth is more than just his sister. She is his playmate and his advocate.
"Austin is my hero,'' the teenager with long, silky brown hair and intense brown eyes told a roomful of grown-ups at a National Alliance for Autism Research meeting in Punta Gorda almost two years ago.
It was the kickoff luncheon for the first walk-a-thon organized by the newly formed Southwest Florida branch of NAAR and Elizabeth, then 13, and her mother, Sharon Boyd, were co-chairmen. Since then, Elizabeth, the youngest person to head up a NAAR walkathon, has been a crusader, helping to raise money for autism research and awareness of the disability and how it affects families. This year, she helped raise $91,000. She is now a familiar spokesman at NAAR meetings. Her goal is to become a pediatrician, specializing in autism.
"She's dedicated to raising money and finding answers,'' said Patty Tapia, NAAR's national coordinator.
"It all started out for Austin, but now it's for all the other kids,'' Elizabeth said. "It's for my kids, too. I mean, the odds are against me. I think autism is a genetic condition, triggered by the chemicals in the environment. There's a good chance I'll have a kid with autism.''
For now, Elizabeth is Austin's caregiver.
Sharon Boyd, 38, doesn't know how she would cope without Elizabeth.
"I know if I died tomorrow Austin would be OK with her,'' Boyd said as she sat at a picnic table and watched her daughter and son at play. "She'll fight for him.''
Sharon and her husband, Mark, owner of Mark Boyd's Pest Control, have three other children, Aubry, 13; Alyssa, 7; and Adam, 2. That day, Mark Boyd had stayed home in Englewood with the three siblings while Elizabeth and her mother drove into Fort Myers with Austin for his weekly therapy session with Kelly Nicolosi. After the session the threesome stopped at the playground before going home.
Nicolosi, an occupational therapist, thinks Elizabeth is wise beyond her years.
"She's taken on such an important role in Austin's life,'' she said. "She definitely has the ability to connect with him. I rely on her for input."
While Nicolosi talked, Austin walked in a perfectly straight line along the periphery of the playground, pushing a tiny toy car along the chain link fence, also in a straight line.
"He's into lines,'' Elizabeth said. "At home if we forget to lock the refrigerator, he'll start removing food and line it up on the kitchen table. He gets carried away.''
And then, when it looked like Austin was retreating into his own world again, Elizabeth and Sharon called to him.
"Come on Austin,'' Elizabeth coaxed. "Let's play.''
"Play,'' Austin repeated.
"Good talking, Austin,'' Elizabeth said.
Austin turned and ran toward his sister. She picked him up in her arms and swung him around. He laughed. Just like any child.
The next day when a reporter telephoned the family's home, Sharon Boyd's voice quavered. Austin could be heard screaming in the background. "He's having a meltdown,'' his mother said.
Moments later Elizabeth was on the telephone talking about her brother. She said he can't help the screaming fits.
She wants, more than anything, for Austin to be free of the urge to scream. To be free of the bonds that keep him in a separate world.
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