(Ed. Note: Ted Hoffman rejoins us today with a powerful piece about Lakeland’s Achievement Academy and the good work it’s doing. Here’s a link to the school’s web site.)

LAKELAND—Each parent at Achievement Academy’s annual Carnival probably had a moment of delight and relief. Maybe it was when their normally disconnected child played one of the games—ring toss, bowling, checkers—or when a shy or aloof child joined in the dancing to the D.J.’s silly, fun music.

For my wife and me, it was when our son, Teddy, cackled with delight while riding the rickety plywood “train” that chugged over the heat-baked asphalt outside Tigertown’s Hanger No. 2 at Saturday’s event. The “engineer” turned on a gizmo that sent squadrons of soap bubbles toward us as we snaked our trackless route, and Teddy delighted in the delicate aerobatics with a giddy “Ha! Ha!”

Teddy’s 5. He falls into the autism spectrum. And rises, and falls, and rises, and falls again. He is uncannily smart, but all that buoyant intelligence is caged in a mind that tricks him, hides him, buries him. It’s a hall of mirrors we can never really enter, even if we are allowed glimpses of the boy who might have been. But we love and treasure the boy who is.

That’s where Achievement Academy comes in. The school, which offers therapy and education to children with special needs at campuses in Lakeland, Bartow and Winter Haven, helps parents cope with children they could never have prepared for and struggle to understand. The academy, supported by tireless volunteers, stages the Carnival for current and former students to give them a chance to experience a circus-like atmosphere for free.

The hanger, as it holds the event, is a kind of metaphor for Teddy’s mind. Towering, cavernous, filled with activity and noise and color and music, the internal movements are unpredictable, ineffable, rarely able to escape or transcend those massive metal walls.

But there was Teddy smiling, if nervously, as he rode with his mama in a horse-drawn carriage; grinning as he explored the inside of a firetruck; wandering among the dozens of parents, children and volunteers at the Carnival. These are priceless moments that parents of, and how this word grates, “normal” kids might not comprehend. Once incapable of being around other people, prone to savage tantrums and bouts of self-inflicted brutality, caught in endless loops of phrases and repetition of things said to him (a condition called echolalia), Teddy now makes eye contact even with strangers, smiles often, shows a devilish sense of humor and a gentle compassion.

At Saturday’s Carnival, wherever we were we heard “Hi, Teddy!” from other parents and kids. It seems we all know each other, all lean on each other, all encourage each other. That’s another irreplaceable asset of Achievement Academy.

If you want to learn more about the academy, send an e-mail to information@achievementacademy.com. In Lakeland, you can call (863) 683-6504; in Bartow, (863) 533-0690; and in Winter Haven, (863) 965-7586.

And the next time you take your child to the circus or Disney World, don’t take for granted a single moment of the pleasure on the child’s face. It could be no more precious than Teddy, awash in bubbles on a train without tracks, trapped in a mind without exits ... except those small and growing openings gradually, resolutely opened by the marvelous people at Achievement Academy.

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