Autistic kids experience rush of surfing in Montauk, despite rough ocean

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A crowd at the edge of the rough, white-capped ocean at Ditch Plains in Montauk last Friday started cheering as Israel “Izzy” Paskowitz paddled into a misshapen wave and helped a small boy leap to his feet on the longboard they shared.

“Is that him?” Laurie Mortenson of Manorville exclaimed to her husband Greg, “Yes, yes it’s Gregory!” she said, breaking into a wild, giant smile as Mr. Mortenson yelled, “Way to go, Gregory!” The whole crowd was clapping and hooting and the Mortensons beamed.

With his arms out and the ocean spray fanning out behind him, Gregory, the Mortensons’ 8-year-old son, wore an expression of happy exhilaration as he rode the wave toward shore. It was a rare moment—especially because Gregory is autistic and struggles to do anything that breaks from his routine. “To see him do something individual without us having to hold his hand is pretty amazing,” Ms. Mortenson said.

Gregory was one of 51 children taking part in a free, one-day surf camp for kids with autism run by Surfers Healing, a group founded in California by Mr. Paskowitz, a former world champion surfer, and his wife Danielle. East End Disability Associates, Inc. of Riverhead hosted the event. It was the fourth year Surfers Healing came to run a camp in Montauk—one of the many camps in increasing demand that they hold across the country.

During a break, Mr. Paskowitz humbly said with childlike enthusiasm, “we’re just trying to survive these crazy, dangerous, big surf, sharp rocked, nasty conditions.”

Mr. Paskowitz and his wife founded Surfers’ Healing in 1999 because they had seen the soothing and powerful effect the ocean and surfing with his father had on their son Isaiah, now 18. He was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old.

“If you don’t know autism and you don’t know the anxiety of breaking the routine,” Mr. Paskowitz said, “it would be hard to convey the challenge of getting some of the kids into the water. There can be a lot of screaming and kicking, but the point is reaching out and exposing kids to something healthy and quite frankly, a little dangerous.”

“Once they’re in the water, something comes over them and it’s a different kid,” he said. There are no requirements 
for the kids; they don’t even have to 
know how to swim. “Today the kids 
can do whatever they want. No one is judging them,” he said.

Mr. Paskowitz travels with eight other guys, who he carefully has chosen as capable to help in the water with the campers, including Garrett McNamara of Hawaii, who is famous for surfing the world’s biggest waves.

Mr. McNamara said that every kid is different, but there’s often an initial struggle. “But once we get them out in the water it’s like a light switch goes off and they see the water rushing by the rails and they’re all of a sudden in awe. It’s the most incredible transformation from not wanting anything to do with it to, ‘I’m the king of the world.’”

“Many autistic kids don’t express any emotion,” he continued, “but in the water, they’re expressing emotions they’ve never expressed and connecting with you and connecting with the ocean.”

Kids at Ditch Plains came from as far away as Pennsylvania and Buffalo. Valerie and Steven Montague drove more than three hours from Connecticut with their son Zack, who is 14.

“I’d drive farther next time to do it again,” Mrs. Montague said. “It’s the look on their faces. To do something that they’ve never done before is just such a big deal for kids with autism.”

Geri LaPointe, from Baiting Hollow, came with her son Alec, who is also 14 and had attended all of the camps in Montauk.

“He’s like a different child out there. He just lights up,” Ms. LaPointe said. “Even the first time we did this, he was so nervous but once he’s out on the water he’s so calm. He’ll talk about it for days afterward.”

A volunteer staff from Cittanuova served a barbecue lunch, led by Kevin Penner and Carol Covell, whose nephew participated in the camp. Local Montauk surfers and members of the East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue squad also were there volunteering.

On the beach watching over the festivities was another legend in the surf community, Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, 88, father to Izzy and eight other children. Mr. Paskowitz, who attended Stanford Medical School, dropped off the grid in the 1950s, and raised his nine children on the beach in a trailer, starting what is now dubbed the nation’s oldest surf camp, in San Onofre.