Autistic student is skilled bowler

By Matthew Pleasant
Wire Service Correspondent

HOUMA, La. (AP) – Nearly an hour passes at the lanes and, without breaking a sweat, Keith Michael Carter bowls eight straight games.
He flings the ball down the alley, pauses to watch the pins fall, then rushes to his mother, Alberta Carter, pointing to the video-screen scoreboard – a strike.
“ Bowling is the thing that has held his attention the longest,” Alberta Carter says, sitting in the lobby of Creole Lanes in Houma. “He lives here.”
Her son, 18, has autism, a developmental disability that impairs communication, social interaction and comprehension skills. The disorder also causes obsessive behavior, his mother says, like the kind of unwavering fascination Carter has for bowling.
Since he was young, Carter has immersed himself in sports, his mother said, giving up one only to become engrossed in another. She said bowling is his latest and longest obsession her son has cultivated since the age of 8.
His mother says it has won him competitions and recognition from peers.
For the last three years, Keith Michael Carter has taken home trophies from the Special Superstars bowling tournament, which is made up in part with students from Houma’s School for Exceptional Children, where Carter attends classes.
He likes to do well, always shooting for three strikes in a row, or a “turkey” in bowling terms. He doesn’t talk much but taps his mother on the shoulder when he wants her to glance at the X’s – the mark for strikes – filling the scoreboard.
When Carter first began showing signs of autism, he was only 23-months old, his mother said. He had already begun walking, and he knew how to work a microwave and VCR. But he soon came down with a fever and seizures.
“ Everything changed,” she said. “The walking turned to crawling. He had to learn everything again.”
Doctors told her Carter had autism, she said.
Alberta Carter doesn’t hide the frustration of raising an autistic child. She says it’s hard. Without notice, her son can become angry, breaking dishes and punching walls. At 6 feet and 279 pounds, he physically dominates her.
“ There were lots of crying nights and prayers for strength,” she said. “When you think about someone you carried for nine months, you can’t begin to think that child would hit you. He doesn’t realize his strength”
Carter responds to older men, such as his father or counselor, who are closer to his size. Her technique for calming him is to speak in a soothing voice or rub him on the back.
When he’s calm, he likes music, his mother said, adding that he often asks his mother and sister to dance with him in the living room.
“ Put some Aretha Franklin on, and he’s happy,” she said. “He doesn’t like that new rap.”
Carter’s physical strength is apparent at the bowling alley, where he can spend hours with his father or counselor.
“ He’ll bowl 20 straight games if you let him,” said Michael Celestin, a counselor with Gulf Coast Family Services who has worked with other autistic children. “Whatever they love to be into, that’s what they try to accomplish, every day if they can.”
Celestin said that it might look like Carter is lugging the ball with all his strength, but he actually has a technique. Celestin has seen Carter pick up spares that are difficult for even more experienced players.
“ He’s got a power throw. He doesn’t hold back,” Celestin said. “But he knows where he wants to put the ball.”
Carter averages about 161, with a high score of 287, Celestin said. It’s his goal to score a 300 and make the wall-of-fame near the entrance of Creole Lanes.
“ He tells me ‘Mom, that’s what I’m working for,’” Alberta Carter said.