To help bring families back into the fold, Emmaus church becomes welcoming place for children with autism

Nov. 16--One Sunday a while back, Beryl Snyder and her husband went to church. She took her place in the choir and he took his usual spot in the back pew.

Soon, a woman with a young boy asked Kevin Snyder if she could sit with him. She whispered that her son had autism and warned that he might be disruptive during the service.

No worries, he assured her.

Soon, the boy began fidgeting. The mother apologized. Honestly, Snyder told her, it's no bother.

The boy kept fidgeting. And the mother, clearly embarrassed, took him and left.

When Beryl Snyder heard the story, it troubled her. She was even more disturbed later when one of the staff members at the church -- St. John's United Church of Christ in Emmaus, where Snyder is director of Christian education -- shared an article that said an extraordinarily high percentage of parents with autistic children seldom or never attend services because their children might cause disruptions.

"That can't happen," Snyder declared. "These children can't help what they have."

She didn't know much about autism. She set to work anyway, looking for ideas to make the church more welcoming to parents who were depriving themselves of the kind of spiritual sustenance that might ease the stress of raising children with autism.

Fidgeting and tantrums among children in church are hardly confined to autistic children, of course. They are more common because autism is a sensory disorder, meaning lights, textures and sounds can prove especially distressing.

Affecting roughly 1 in 60 children, autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S. And the movement to create welcoming environments for autistic people has been taking hold in recent years.

In 2015, for example, the theater group at Muhlenberg College mounted "sensory friendly" productions of a musical, with soft lighting and quieter music and dialogue. DeSales University does the same thing at its Shakespeare Festival. The movement arrived on Broadway last year with the first sensory friendly production of "The Lion King.

Last year, Lehigh Valley International Airport became just the third airport in the world to open a sensory room for children with autism. Sesame Place in Bucks County became the first theme park in the world to be designated a Certified Autism Center, a status bestowed by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards. And the Chuck E. Cheese in Whitehall joined others in the chain to start Sensory Sensitive Sundays.

Churches, too, are part of the movement. One website lists more than a dozen churches in the Lehigh Valley that accommodate autistic children in some way, by providing special shorter services, for example, or having volunteers on hand to assist families.

The Catholic Diocese of Allentown's website includes a section with resources for parishes and parents seeking to accommodate people with disabilities, including children with autism. Those resources include a booklet on the Mass designed for children with autism or children who are visual learners.

Calvary Church has programs for people with autism and other special needs at its Quakertown and Souderton campuses.

Snyder's initial research, though, led her not to churches but to the Reading Public Museum, which was the first museum in Pennsylvania to become a Certified Autism Center. Among the offerings there are "tactile sensory bags," which contain items designed to soothe and engage autistic children, including headphones to block out noise and sunglasses to dim lights.

"Why couldn't we do something like that as well?" Snyder said. "Hopefully, they could find something in the bag to keep them occupied."

She followed the museum's lead, including headphones and sunglasses in the bags. Other items include soft gloves, Beanie Babies -- "These are fun to just squish," she said -- and light-up fidget spinners.

Oh, and Twiddle Muffs. The Lioness Club of Emmaus makes these fabric sleeves with tactile items such as buttons and bottle caps sewn on the inside. Families have to return the bags at the end of service but can keep the muffs.

Like most churches, St. John's has a quiet room, where parents can take fussy children or crying infants. The front wall is glass, so everyone can see the service. Snyder made this space sensory friendly, too, adding a lot of plush toys to go with the colorful books.

All of this was fine in theory, but what about in practice?

That's where Dylan Furlong came in. He's the son of one of Snyder's friends, an affectionate 4-year-old dynamo who, so far, communicates largely by pointing and by saying the first letter of each word in a sentence.

"We speak fluent Dylan," said his mother, Ashley Furlong of Allentown, visiting St. John's one recent day with Dylan and his father, Kevin Furlong.

Dylan is a counter and an organizer. Once, during an occupational therapy session at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital, Dylan indicated he wanted his father to say a letter of the alphabet. Kevin did, and Dylan pointed to a day on a wall calendar. When Kevin said "E," for example, Dylan pointed to the fifth of the month. When he said X, Dylan pointed to the 24th.

After a while, it dawned on Kevin that his son was pointing to numbers that correlated to the letter's place in the alphabet -- E is the fifth letter, X is the 24th and so on.

Dylan is exactly the kind of child who would benefit from the church's new offerings. He is loudly exuberant and almost always in motion. But when he becomes engrossed in something, like a book, he settles into a relatively quiet concentration.

"It has to be what he wants to play with at that time," Ashley said.

Three weeks ago, she brought him to church. And thanks to Beryl Snyder's bags of goodies and the welcoming quiet room, she found the spiritual haven she had denied herself for a long time.

Dylan occupied himself. His mother sang and prayed. And Snyder saw a church where many more Ashleys and Dylans could make a home on Sunday, not only for their benefit but for the enlightenment of the congregation itself. Autism, after all, remains a mystery to many people.

"I love when people ask me questions," said Ashley, who became a devoted evangelist of the autism awareness movement as it became clear Dylan was on the spectrum.

Snyder is trying to get the word out through social media and word of mouth: All children welcome.

"If this would take off, and I really hope it does, I would love to get more children and parents back to church," she said. "I want them to find a spiritual home."

Online: stjohnsuccemmaus.org.

Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com

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