Support leads to success
Early intervention that helped her autistic son 'very limited' in territory, says mother
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Monday, March 7, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Doctors told Denise McKee her son would never be a functional member of society but a showcase of his woodworking, baking and photography at St. Patrick High School last Wednesday proves them wrong, she says.
Conlon McKee was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum at age two, after exhibiting difficulties speaking and learning. Now 18 years old, he has surpassed the benchmarks set for him early on because he was able to get extended early intervention care after his and four other families with autistic children teamed up in 2004 to make a case before the Ontario Superior Court, she said.
In 2005, the court ruled the province was in violation of the equality rights of children because it failed to provide intervention programs, including in schools, for autistic children ages six and older. The court ordered the province to pay damages for the cost of intervention, past and future.
McKee said it meant Conlon was able to keep getting the help he needed. Today, he is able to understand things he's told, recognize his own name and has begun focusing on a vocation - with woodworking being a top contender.
"His whole life has been kind of a lifetime of proving people wrong," she said. "We were told he'd never be able to learn anything, he'd never be able to do anything for himself. They said he'd never work, but now he has four jobs."
McKee said her son required about 35 hours of time with a professional, trained to help him learn how to recognize words and begin speaking.
"In the beginning, he couldn't even recognize his own name," she said.
Nowadays, McKee said her son is serving as an ambassador, proving that autistic people who have been written off by doctors can be valuable community members. She said she hopes more Yellowknife employers would consider hiring people like her son.
"I think there has to be more awareness and we have to really increase the knowledge of hiring people," she said. "It's good for business."
Conlon's dad, Neil McKee, said his son has developed his skills as a carpenter and as a cook and has most recently taken an interest in photography.
"He's always been really interested in images, zooming in on specific pieces of the images on the Internet," he says. "And he's got a pretty good eye."
Like woodworking, however, photography is currently just a hobby on the side of Conlon's various part-time jobs, including custodial work with Buffalo Airways, Home Hardware, Canadian Tire and at the Field House.
Like Denise's fear that her son might not ever be able to learn - as the doctors suggested - she also worried he wouldn't make friends. But having a twin brother, Kyle, and older sisters who are also twins, Alysson and Alannis, that was less of an issue.
"They've always all been super close," she said. " So he had advantages in the fact that all the friends of the kids were always with him too. And so people really got to know him."
The family moved to Aklavik in 2008 and then on to Yellowknife in 2011 to be closer to programming around autism - also, so her other children could have easier access to post-secondary education. Here in the territory, McKee said children in the same situation as Conlon are limited as to the sort of supports available and that has significant bearing on their future development.
"Early intervention is extremely, extremely limited (in the North) particularly for kids with the challenges Conlon faces," she said. "It's only available in Yellowknife and we have a wait-list longer than the amount of kids we can give it to. And those are the highest-need kids. There are lots of kids who could really benefit who aren't getting it."
