A Mother’s First Reponse to the “Maternal Sensitivity” Study
Filed Under (Acceptance, Communication, Discrimination, autism) by Estee on 28-02-2010
This study sent a little shiver through my body. Remember the story of the big bad “Refrigerater Mother?” She was the mother who was blamed for causing autism in her child in the 1960′s. Many mothers during that period were tormented for being pushed to believe they were the cause of their child’s autism. I wonder if the legend survives. From a peripheral read of the following study, this mom had a maternal “first response:”
I am not commenting on how the study was conducted nor the value of “resiliency.” I am commenting on the inference. I am a sensitive mother. Some say I’m pretty good at mothering. I’m extremely sensitive to my son, and he is non verbal. He can manage a word or phrase now and again, but at nearly eight years of age, it’s pretty difficult. I engaged Adam. I did everything (and still do everything) I can think of. He is a wonderful child who is anxious and has some sleep issues. I’m not sure I could have been even more sensitive than I was to make him more resilient. While he’s pretty good at moving around the community, going to school (with an aide), traveling, he does have extremely difficult days too and we are going through some of them RIGHT NOW during a major transition in our lives. Because of Adam I continue to grow and learn how to work with him, and there is always something new for me to learn.
With this study, I fail to see an acknowledgment (in the links I could find tonight, I have to qualify this) that for many autistic individuals the inability to speak fluently, or at all, is neurological, not just dependent on the sensitive mother. The term “re-wiring” is used a lot for individuals with brain injury and just as often by gurus selling therapies for curing autism. I will never argue that, as parents, we all want to try and help our children in a world that is often confusing and frustrating for them. Yet, I also wonder if teaching autistic children how to communicate is something very different than re-wiring, for that implies that we are fixing something to make it better. Adam communicates all the time. Like the two-year-old who may have warbled speech indecipherable to many but the parent, some of us close to Adam know what he is communicating — and quite boldly. Perhaps we might consider that working with autistic children is like figuring out the intricate wiring that already exists. Like the ill-suited American plug to the European outlet, maybe we aren’t meant to re-wire the autistic brain into a neurotypical one.
“In this study, maternal sensitivity (and primarily, sensitive structuring) was more predictive of language growth among toddlers developing autism than among children who did not go on to an autism diagnosis. One possible explanation is that children with autism may be more dependent on their environment to learn certain skills that seem to come more naturally to other children.”
I would agree that our children need our support, and this does take extra effort on our part.
“Parenting may matter even more for children with developmental problems such as autism because certain things that tend to develop easily in children with typical neurological development, like social communication, don’t come as naturally for kids with autism, so these skills need to be taught,” says Jason K. Baker, a postdoctoral fellow at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, who conducted the study with Messinger while at UM.”
I don’t disagree with the idea that autistic children require more support and accommodation in a confusing environment, and that “being sensitive” is especially important. Many of this know this. I tend to see this as part of the autism and NT (neurotypical) equation, for the key is that we as parents learn how our children learn and how they see the world. I don’t see it as a tugging into “our world,” but a sharing. It’s the manner in which we, as parents, figure out how to be with the child who is already with us, with challenges in a world that has such difficulty understanding autism, but also with many strengths and attributes. Acceptance is a daily exercise and the idea will challenge us day in and day out — some days (and nights) more than others. Every day Adam works so hard to accept me, to accept this world and the people around him, and I wonder if that’s all we seem to ask him to do. The least we can do is to accommodate him and what he needs and wants from this world.
This article ends with a shallow disclaimer: “We know that parenting doesn’t cause autism. The message here is that parents can make a difference in helping their children fight against autism.” Okay, it doesn’t cause autism, but the implication is that the sensitive mother can improve language acquisition and resiliency skills. The results may have been one hundred percent true according to the study design, but the key piece of accepting autism is missing.
While it is certainly advantageous to have a sensitive parent to ANY child, I would hate to think that one might judge me as being an insensitive one if my son is not able to speak. Further, the focus on mothers specifically has reminded me of times I thought had long gone by. Maybe the Refrigerator Mother still lurks in the dark recesses of some minds. To conclude from my peripheral read and no reading of scientific critique on how the study was conducted, I sniff not only an omission or two, but a little bias.
ESTÉE KLAR
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
Writer.Curator of Art. Founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. Mother of Adam. I like to write about our journey, musings, attitudes towards autism.
Alas, Bruno Bettelheim, you were right on one count and wrong on the other…
Bruno Bettelheim, holocaust survivor who spent time in various concentration camps during the war, knew intimately the behaviour of people in the deepest distress. Every day he saw it in the actions and the eyes of fellow inmates. He eventually would see these very same behaviours in autistic children.
How is it that these kids behaved the same way as prisoners in concentration camps? How was it that these children exhibited the same behaviour as those suffering pain, torture, uncertainty and an everyday fear for their lives but were not actually in a concentration camp or other situation?
This is where Bettelheim took a wrong turn: he blamed the parents based on observations made by Kanner’s studies which stated that the parents and families of the “autistic” children exhibited similar obsessive behaviours and were quite brilliant in mind. Kanner was likely alluding to a possible genetic source since he also said that autistic children were born the way they were, not made. He was simply noting familial similarities.
How could children being raised in relative comfort and normality be exhibiting the behaviours of the extremely distressed? Bettelheim looked at the only constant in a child’s life: caregivers; usually parents.
What Bettelheim failed to see is that the distress being exhibited may be coming from another source: inside the child’s own body and mind. Most notably the differences in perception due to sensory differences, intolerances to certain foods or environments, a constantly racing mind that is hard to slow down and a completely different nervous system. It adds up and is a constant source of stress for some, whether they realize it or not. Many of us have learned to cope with it… in fact, many behaviours are exhibited for that reason: to quiet a body and mind that work on different levels than the average person.
That said, I do believe parents play a big role. Their emotions are readily felt by their autistic children. Their reactions are constantly being observed and noted by their autistic children. Their autistic children do base a lot of their self image on how authorities such as parents, teachers, other caregivers and eventually media and general society view them and treat them.
If a parent is constantly bemoaning their burdensome child who will amount to nothing, that attitude will be picked up.
If a parent really does try to help with the difficulties, tries to help build a child’s self esteem, tries to encourage a child to live the best life they can for themselves, that too will be picked up.
The messages, both direct and indirect, delivered by parents and key people in a child’s life are always picked up. Even by autistic children, which many seem to forget.
Little eyes are always watching. Little ears are always listening. Little minds are always making sense of what is received. Little souls are forging their own destinies based on what they observe, hear, live and feel.
Cold parenting is not always a problem. I found that the less emotion my parents exhibited, the easier it was for me. That could be why I always related better to my father. He was not very emotional unless he absolutely had to be,. He got through to me better. To be honest, the less emotional parent might actually be a benefit, not a detriment to an autistic child who already has a hard time processing the emotions of those around him.
Just my thoughts.
Here are my questions, then:
1. How are they defining “maternal sensitivity”? It’s an awfully nebulous concept. Are they talking about moms who don’t spend a lot of time talking to their children? That would make sense. Moms who don’t talk to their neurotypical children very much tend to have children with smaller vocabularies, and autistic children are no different. If you want to learn, you have to be exposed to the material.
2. How big, exactly, is the effect? Is it any bigger than the effect of interacting with neurotypical children? If you have, say, only ~5% more progress with speech among one group, then most likely, this “sensitivity” they’re talking about (however they define it) doesn’t make the difference between being verbal and non-verbal; it would be more like the difference between a fifty-word vocabulary and a fifty-five-word vocabulary.
Children learn better in good environments. We know that. A “refrigerator mother” won’t do a neurotypical child any good, either. It makes sense to determine the optimum environment for raising an autistic child. We just hope this doesn’t go in the direction of blaming parents for somehow not doing enough.
DJ, This was a really interesting comment, thank you.
You said: “Little eyes are always watching. Little ears are always listening. Little minds are always making sense of what is received. Little souls are forging their own destinies based on what they observe, hear, live and feel.”
We always say this in my house. But it’s not just about NOT talking negatively or bemoaning autism out loud. Non acceptance is insidious. It is practiced every day even by the best of us. I cannot say what true acceptance looks like in its perfect form. I can only speak from one experience at a time (or one discrimination at a time), and it also looks like the person who is always in the face of an autistic person, constant worry (sometimes that’s even me — especially now when Adam is in so much distress from the move and I too am feeling more vulnerable and “sensitive” to him than normal), trying to get the child into the school that’s “going to make them better.”
We don’t just have to watch our words, we have to analyze our very real and natural thoughts because this is how we were all brought up to think.
Callista, Thank you for your good questions and comment here. I agree that autistic children need positive supportive environments and I too see the danger of how this study might be interpreted.
I met a mother of a 26 year old autistic daughter a couple of weeks ago.
The scars of Bettleheim were still as fresh as they were decades ago.
Sometimes I think that there are certain aberrant thought processes that just won’t ever totally go away. Besides “The Refrigerator Mother”, I would also include “Vaccines Cause Autism”, and “Eugenics”.
Joe
Hi Estee,
I think I might have been misintepreted. My message was not intended as an attack. I’m doing my speech later this week, so I’m kind of stuck on the “what folks need to know about the history of autism in science and the experience of autism from the inside”. My apologies if I came across the right way. It’s a sensitive topic.
You said: “We always say this in my house. But it’s not just about NOT talking negatively or bemoaning autism out loud. Non acceptance is insidious. It is practiced every day even by the best of us.”
I know that you’re not talking negatively or bemoaning autism. Unfortunately, I have met quite a few parents in my travels online and in person who do express the negative sentiments and that was who I was referring to. One constantly posts to my blog about how I must be referring to “other” autistic people since one of this person’s children is beyond hope and, let’s call a spade a spade… a burden to that particular family. This person doesn’t just do this on my blog but on others as well. It’s quite disheartening because I wonder what messages this parent is projecting directly and indirectly at the child in question…
You are absolutely right in that it is not just about saying the words, but the practice as well. Actions and implied emotions are picked up as well.
From what I have seen in TAAP and your blogs is that you have your ups and downs as is to be expected with any child, but ultimately, your messages are practical, constructive and positive. You try to understand, try to accept and, most importantly, try your best to help Adam accept himself and deal with his differences. That is a the mark of an excellent parent, in my opinion.
It won’t always be a walk in the park, as you know, but you have committed to doing the best you can to make the experience as positive as possible…who could ask for anything more?
You’re doing an awesome job as a mum and advocate. If only more of the autism advocates could take on the same positive, yet realistic outlook, we might get somewhere. :^)
I was haunted by Bettleheim. I finally read the book. As I remember, I came away feeling guilty, but also aware the dude had a fixation on t &a (breasts and poopie). He also slapped around the kids he garnered from their parents, and admitted it, but not in The Empty Fortress.. A hero in his own eyes…but more of a charleton. He said that a mother just “holding” her child for a second or two at birth, in the case of an adopted child, could transfer the evil and hate inside her to the child for the rest of their lives. Voo-doo psychiatry. Mmmm-hmmm. When I finally let the guilt go, I realized pretty much the same thing DJ did. Because of their innate sensitivity to noise, lights, smells, etc, the intensity of their senses (ex: raindrops sounding like bullets) and feelings,, the possibility that the world was a constant state of bombardment to them could account for their behavior. That, and the wiring differences that made communication something to be avoided (words had to be taught visually to Ben) pretty much sets them up for “behavior problems”..
Look at the story of Helen Keller. Until she found a key to the minds of others, her behavior was out of control because the world made no sense to her.. It was nothing her parents did that made it that way. I think we are in a time of tremendous growth in understanding of autism. but we do have to realize our kids aren’t broken copies of normal. They are different!!!
Oh my goodness, D.J, I didn’t interpret your comment as negative or an attack in any way! No worries!!!!
To Rose: I just finished a course in personality theories as part of my psych degree and it’s very interesting that you mention Bettelheim was obsessed with T & A. We examined the writings of several prominent psychologists/psychiatrists from that area (Germany) and that time (wartime and pre-wartime) and it seems that a lot of them were obsessed with two things: sex and death. Makes you wonder what was going through the heads of post-Victorian/wartime people!! ;^)
Joking aside, I really love what you had to say about the guilt and then about letting go of the guilt. Letting go of the guilt seems to open the way for realization. A lot of the “therapies” out there do tend to set autistic people up for failure which leads to frustration which ultimately leads to unpleasant behaviour.
Best of all was “we do have to realize our kids aren’t broken copies of normal. They are different!!!” May I use this comment in my “What Parents Need to Know About Autism” presentation? That says exactly what I want to say to the parents who will be attending.