Looking for improvement

Jeff Huntsman sits in his Anchorage kitchen while his mother, Anita Evans, tends to Jayson, 17 months, and Zoe, 3. Huntsman was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and is in need of tickets to visit his father in Nanwalek.

It's easy to leave a conversation with 15-year-old Jeff Huntsman feeling you didn't connect.

Clearly intelligent, Jeff can rattle off sports statistics or technical information about his mother's home computer. He's made honor roll in science and art. He knows plenty about Japanese animation.

But when he talks, something is lacking.

Part of it is expression. Is he happy? Is he sad? Jeff's face and voice offer few hints. And since he often misses conversational cues, it's easier just to ask him direct questions or have him finish sentences.

Finish this sentence, Jeff: "It's a really good day when Š"

"When people are being nice."

Complicating matters, he looks away when he talks, rarely trying to meet another's gaze. He lets long silences stand.

If that sounds frustrating for those talking to him, it's even more so for Jeff.

Think of someone who doesn't understand you.

"That," he says, "would be everyone."

Until last year, the cause of Jeff's miscommunications was unclear. He was diagnosed with a type of attention-deficit disorder and placed in classes for emotionally disturbed children.

But the classes seemed to do more harm than good, said his mother, Anita Evans. Some fellow students teased his mannerisms, his soft voice, everything about him, she said. His only defense seemed to be to literally curl up when he faced danger "like a sensitive plant," Evans says.

One day at school -- a day shortly after the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado -- Jeff thought of another defense. Fed up, he threatened the students who teased him. School officials disciplined him with a school suspension. Evans was shaken.

She signed her son into a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

There, he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a condition related to autism that makes social interactions a puzzle. People with the condition have normal intellects but need help with basic social skills. They are often misdiagnosed and often have little ability to defend themselves from teasing.

The new diagnosis, says Evans, has meant "less floundering, more direction." For the first time, Jeff and his family have a road map for success. For the past year, her son has attended problem-solving therapy, learning new ways to interact. At her insistence, he no longer has classes with emotionally disturbed children but instead works with others more like himself. She has seen improvement.

Evans would like her son's steady effort to improve his skills to be rewarded and reinforced. Regular visits to his father, who lives in Nanwalek, would be an especially nice reward for him, she said. He dreams of being a foreign exchange student in Japan, though his mother says that is not possible right now. She encourages anyone who might be interested in being a Big Brother to apply with the organization Big Brothers Big Sisters of Anchorage.

Jeff Huntsman

L-1 Round-trip ticket(s) to Nanwalek, $250