In 1998 my youngest brother, Kelton, was diagnosed with autism, a developmental disability that affects communication and social interaction. Autism currently affects 1/88 people in the United States. Kelton is a talented individual who runs cross-country and track, wrestles, plays the drums, loves history, and collects bobble heads and keychains.

This year Kelton decided to enroll in his first art class where he discovered his skill for drawing. His unorthodox style made me reconsider my artwork and examine the differences and similarities that exist between our perspectives. According to Paul Collins’ Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism, artists are four times more likely to have autism in their families. Considering the number of artists in my family, this statistic made me question the similarities that exist between Kelton and me. For this reason, we have decided to draw one of his 6,481 keychains a day for one year. These drawings will be as simple and uninhibited as possible. This project will explore our individual perspectives and examine the similarities that exist between us as artists.

Day 192



Yesterday Kelt started taking melatonin to help his sleep problems that developed several years ago. On a typical weeknight he gets 5-6 hours of sleep, which ruins his school day. He's unable to focus and sometimes falls asleep in class. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, melatonin is a hormone that regulates other hormones and helps control our sleep cycle. Discussed in the Science News section of Autism Speaks, the Journal of Child Neurology published a study by Vanderbilt University School of Medicine that suggests that melatonin supplements can help people with autism with sleep problems:

"Melatonin levels are low in children with autism, which suggested that taking a melatonin supplement could help them with sleep. 'Rather than treating them with some other drug that would promote sleep, [we could] give them what they're missing,' said Beth Malow, M.D., M.S., senior author of the study and a neurologist specializing in sleep at VU" (Autism Speaks).

We'll see how it works for Kelt. In this study, 25% of the children (ages 2-18) stopped having sleep problems and 60% reported an improvement (107 children total) within 2-6 months.
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2 comments:

  1. The Internet ExplorersApril 3, 2011 at 3:37 AM

    My son is 7, and takes melatonin. It's really helped him sleep, as he used to be till 11pm pacing, and now goes to sleep heppily at 7:30pm. He says it stops the parties in his brain... Which sounds like a positive thing I suppose - certainly he thinks it's good. Hope it all goes well for you guys. Great blog by the way!

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  2. Kelton and AinsleyApril 6, 2011 at 12:58 AM

    That's great news! It might be a placebo effect, but it seems to working for him too even though it's only been about a week. He typically goes to bed by 11, which is an improvement from 2 or 3. "Parties in his brain." Great description. I'm sure that's exactly what it seems like.

    Thanks for checking our blog out!

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