Autistic Children and Liturgical Worship

Charlotte Riggle has written a thoughtful post on loving and accommodating autistic children and their families in church.

Which reminds me of a young man who has opened my eyes to how liturgical worship can be a very good fit for autistic children.

A few years ago, when he and his parents visited my church from out of town, the boy was clearly fascinated by our traditional low church Anglican worship.  So much so that he would not stay in the pews but went up, stood right beside our rector and very closely watched everything he did, especially as he consecrated the bread and wine.  The boy was quiet and not at all disruptive about it.  And our rector, who has a wonderful gentle heart, continued without interruption, taking it all in stride as did everyone else.  If anyone was uncomfortable, it was his parents, of course.

Recently he and his father visited again.  He had grown more self-controlled and more sociable.  But he still clearly loved liturgical worship.  In fact, he was now regularly an acolyte at his home church, and we let him acolyte during our Holy Communion service as the Crucifer.  He proved a quick learner and performed his duties very well.

Anyway, I am throwing this experience out there.  I am no expert on autism (although I have worked with autistic people perhaps more than most).  But my understanding and experience is that autistic people like a degree of order.  So traditional liturgical worship might be helpful in that regard as long as the priest and congregation takes any mild disorder a child might cause in stride.  I am certainly glad to have seen that first hand.