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Now that my soon to be five year old son with ASD is approaching his birthday, we have been practicing what that is, what a party will look like and some of the related issues of time. A very anxiety filled event for him, birthdays are scary. Teaching a child about the passage of time is hard enough, throw autism into the mix and you just never know what you'll get. Thru our journey into understanding all this, he's found a new favorite question: "How old are you?" Most four/five year olds repond ok to this - it is something most typical kids ask other kids. Adults, however, are a different story. Being proud and rewarding my son for trying to understand time, age and how it all works has a downside. This would be that he asks everyone, everywhere how old they are. Do adults understand what an accomplishment this is for him? Not on your life. Almost all are offended. I've heard so many negative come backs from them, I just can't believe it. How can someone say these things to a child?! Why would anyone look at an innocent, happy, smiling child asking a benign question and say, "None of your d*** business!" Really??? This is the story of our life. We work so hard to get this child to have some understanding of this world, to try to connect to it, to become curious about it only to have people undermine things with so little regard. Please remember - little steps are huge for some, impossible for others and always worth celebrating. If you can't think of anything nice to say when my son asks you how old you are in the middle of the grocery store, please just smile and say, "Old."