Estée KlarTo Get To The Other Side

I love this video. It’s just that simple. “You get rid of the autism gene and you get rid of Mozart, Einstein, Silicon Valley…” I love how Temple advocates and it’s this kind of advocacy that assists us in putting ourselves, as neurotypical parents and teachers and therapists, with outrageous expectations, under a much needed spotlight. Beyond listening to her story about “gifts” is an opportunity to consider the disconnect we create when we try to “fix the problem.”

We’ve had some encouraging messages lately, haven’t we? The HBO production of Temple Grandin played by Claire Danes shows that while (and many of us have read Temple’s books already) the world caused her anxiety, she could “see details other people are blind to,” she says. “I have a gift.”

Certainly the idea of giftedness, which happens in non autistic and autistic persons, can be yet another stereotype in assessing autistic people. Perception, on the other hand, is something to think about deeply.

When Adam was very young, we had these water blocks that were dyed different colours. Adam was mesmerized by these blocks watching the water swish and swoosh. Then all of a sudden, my wobbly toddler took them up to the window and peered through them. Ah, I thought. If only we could all stare at the world through coloured water blocks. How beautiful it would be. I know was also in part a cooing mother of a young autistic boy, so anything he did like this made me hyper-aware. But still.

When he got his “legs” and we began walking around the neighbourhood, Adam memorized his routes. To this day, if we take him to his old house and walk from there or the park nearby, he will remember how to get to that park or get back through the old “secret pathway” to the old house — which has even since been torn down and rebuilt! Remember, that was his two-three year old brain. In April, he will be eight-years-old.

Coming out soon will be a new version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton. Many people suspect that Carrol was himself autistic with his different perceptual abilities. He is often cited as a person who “suffered” from micropsia and macropsia, which is a neurological condition that changes the way the brain perceives the size of objects. When Alice falls down that rabbit hole, we get a look into Carroll’s mind.

Scientific American Mind published Extraordinary Perception by Wray Herbert this month. It discusses how psychologists at University College London “think that it might be a mistake to consider [autistic] distractability as simply a deficit. To the contrary, Anna Remington and John Swettenham and their colleagues speculate that people with ASD might have greater than normal capacity for perception, so that what appears as irrelevant distraction is really a cognitive bonus.” I added autistic to distractability as many therapies for autism as well as medications are geared at lessening it.

The test, the article shows, was for subjects to “rapidly determine if the letters N or X were present in the ring” on a computer screen. Participants had to then “hit the corresponding key on the keyboard. Some of the circles — those with more letters — were more difficult to process than others. There were also other letters floating outside the circle, but the subjects were specifically instructed to ignore those letters. Those floating letters were the laboratory equivalent of an irrelevant distraction in the real world.” In measuring perceptual capacity, researchers saw that “everyone was slower at the task when the ring contained more letters. The researchers were also measuring distractibility. When a letter outside the ring was one of the target letters (N or X), the subjects often took a longer time finding the N or X in the ring — indicating they were distracted by the presence of a target letter in the location that they were supposed to ignore.”

The researchers reasoned “that as long as the subjects’ total perceptual capacity was not exhausted, they would also process the irrelevant, distracting letters within their visual field. Once they had surpassed their perceptual capacity — once the ring of letters was sufficiently complex — irrelevant processing would stop [bold mine]. So if ASD subjects in fact have greater processing capacity, then they should process more distracting information even as the main task becomes increasingly complex.”

In conclusion, “although there was no difference among subjects in either reaction time or accuracy on the main task, those with ASD processed the irrelevant letters while solving much more complex problems...Put another way, they weren’t ignoring the main task, nor were they distracted away from it. Instead they were completing their work and moving on, using their untapped capacity” [bold mine].

This article also concludes that while this is a benefit, it also does have “real-life consequences.” They begin and end the article citing Tim Page, an author with Aspergers from his book, Parallel Play: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger’s. Page recounts his time in school who failed an essay about his field trip which was quite detailed in terms of his way of perceiving it, and how he was scolded for writing in that particular way. “I had noticed the wrong things,” he writes.

As a parent of an autistic child who has difficulties with verbal communication, I have to ask the question: “whose problem is this anyway?” Certainly I have been dealing with issues, at least issues for me as Adam cannot comment here yet, so I am fully aware that I need to be fair. He has very real sensory and perceptual differences, so I set up a basement full of equipment for him to self-soothe. He has even learned to “self-regulate” by going to read his own books, and I never had to teach him that. His body will completely quiet as he flips through pages of encyclopedias, dictionaries, cookbooks, among many other subjects. He may even appear to layperson as not really paying attention and just flipping pages, but I know it’s more than that. His body-jerking almost always stops, which is how I conclude that he is soothed by his books. I am imagining him looking at those books over and over again, and what he may be gleaning from them. Still, when it comes to getting the responses WE need, he using a “special” reading program at school. Indeed it is really helping with his expressive reading ability, and maybe even with his vocabulary. So I need to let him do both. He needs to learn to respond in a world that doesn’t yet understand the way he learns. He also needs to flip through pages and pages on his own. I can sit beside him sometimes also and talk about the books he is reading. We can type about what he is reading, we can draw stories and make more conclusions or assumptions about what he is reading. When we do things together calmly, we are having lots of fun.

When we teach him a new communication device, it may appear to the person who is teaching that Adam is not focused enough — indeed he appears to be “highly distracted.” On an AAC device (we are still awaiting one from a service-provider here in Toronto) his finger will go to the right picture, letter, or answer, and then he will quickly go to another one to check out what it will do. A keyguard helps him direct his finger more quickly to the correct response. He may have trouble finishing sentences (when he types) and then be reminded to “stay on task.” This is in large part what Facilitated Communication attempts to assist with if done correctly — to remind and assist with the focus. To a person who cannot detect that Adam was about to give the “right” answer (or rather the answer that was requested of him), he would receive a failing grade. Adam is very young and I believe he is not given the benefit of the doubt enough, although his team members are good with this.

It is only fair to say that we do not KNOW everything he knows. We do not fully understand how he takes all this knowledge in and we are the ones that deem his versions of knowledge as irrelevant. We have not developed sufficient ways to measure his responses or his way of learning and seeing, except for the ways we measure responses and knowledge from people who are not autistic. This brings me back to the old ABA adage, “if we can measure it, we can deal with it.” Unfortunately, the way we have historically dealt with autism is by eliminating the behaviours and learning patterns that are essential to an autistic person’s existence. Perhaps continuing to fund this research more heavily is important because as we understand how autistic people learn, we can not only develop better learning tools, but come to better appreciate our children.

Trying to understand this is a first step. As Adam’s parent, I see many of the so-called “issues” being mine, and yes, I become just as frustrated as many other parents out there. It’s really hard to see Adam in distress and it’s even harder to always be guessing what may be causing anxiety or body-jerking (Lack of calcium? Trouble at school? New self-awareness of difference? Trouble with transitioning from task to task? Lack of sleep? Seizures? A very long winter? Lack of exercise? Another neurological issue?…The guess work list is too long). Since Adam appears to be in discomfort since late last fall, I am really working hard at figuring this out (wait-lists are long here in Toronto). Sleep issues, anxiety issues — I know when I have a level head, there is more that I can do for him to ease the situation. We need science now to figure out many of our questions.

Sometimes it feels that makeshift solutions only lead to more issues. Sure, we all want things to be a little easier, but Adam requires more consideration in order to achieve that balance between helping him through discomfort as well as accommodating his needs. As I have been through a difficult year, like many of you out there, I completely understand the reasoning, but I have to keep a level head and look at what Adam has also gone through with a “broken” family. I have needed my sleep, but if Adam cannot, I have to find safe ways of letting him stay up until his body will sleep naturally. I know what I’m saying isn’t easy and there are still days I will resort to the Melatonin, even though, because of the guesswork involved, it pains me to do so. Yet I also know it’s important to stop and slow down and think about how Adam feels and perceives. When I do, everything seems a little easier. As a parent, I can even become proud of myself (it’s important) that I’ve not only managed well, but have helped Adam out too. We are still on that path to finding out if we can help Adam, but I am always wondering excessively about how I perceive the “problem.”

I’m interested in what people in science think about this Perception study. I think we have to spend a lot more time imagining what it feels like to be in Wonderland.

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Excerpts from:

“Extraordinary Perception” by Wray Herbert in March/April 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind, pp. 68-69.

Further Reading:

Selective Attention and Perceptual Load in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Anna Remington, John Swettenham, Ruth Campbell and Mike Coleman in Psychological Science (in press). Published online October 14, 2009. www3.interscience.wiley.com

Lorraine came to me by way of my own website, which attests to the power of the Internet in making connections these days. Reviewing her own work with recycling computers, and how she came to regard herself by way of other people’s view of her, I of course cannot help but think about autistic people and what a “contribution to society” can look like:

For people who view obsessions as negative, this video is another story of how our “obsessions” are pathways to creativity and invention. Visit the Next Step Recycling website.

As a curator of art I have a special interest in “self-taught” art, otherwise known as “Outsider Art” or “Naive Art.” I find these latter terms unfortunate if not unnecessary and, noting my bias, degrading as terms to describe the work, typically, of challenged individuals. In the Art World, the term was used to create a category of art because it did not seek a point of reference from within the “higher” art world.

This post for me is thrilling. Today’s Parent magazine in an article called “Is It A Learning Disability?” , suggested that children with learning disabilities (LD’s) ..” don’t draw,” the caption said, “they scribble.” They is used as yet another “outsider” term, using the “they” as a foreign connotation. I retorted at how important any human marking is, a scribble or a sun. Adam’s motor planning issues makes holding a pen or pencil very difficult. He could draw letters lightly when he was very young and his first “picture” was a happy face with long hair when he was six years old. When I asked him who it was he said “mommy.” Of course that stays in my treasure chest forever.

I like to draw and I’m quite average at it. This past summer, I spent a few hours with Adam drawing what was around us at the cottage we rented, and I tried to teach him how to paint by numbers with a watercolour set — to “stay within the lines.” So counterintuitive is the paint-by-numbers set to me, but I noticed Adam’s willingness and effort to gently use a small watercolour brush, and his keen interest in painting. It also doesn’t hurt that one of his grandmother’s is a painter, his grandfather is a photographer, and his half-brother, a master at etch-a-sketch, not to mention his other artistic pursuits. Adam is interested in all of their work and I’m certain they have all imparted their own abilities to him.

I was not expecting these drawings passed to me from school the other day because I guess we can never know if or when we can expect things to happen, and it wouldn’t be anything I’d force upon him. Adam draws, as of this week, by his own motivation. He suddenly copied pictures from books and I’m utterly breathless at his line and his attention to detail. He told his aide what the pictures depicted and you can see her handwriting — a verbatim record of what he said. From a developmental perspective, I suppose you could say he is seeing the “whole picture.” His attention to detail, bearing in mind his motor challenges, seem remarkable particularly when one’s child has not been able to express themselves easily.

Art can tell us a lot about what a person sees, how they see it, and how they can express it with certain challenges. As I was always certain that Adam could “see the whole picture,” I post here, I suppose, what society needs and what it likes to chew on, which is the sad part of being a part of such an achievement-oriented society. But let’s for a few wonderful moments just savour how beautiful his lines are — how delicate and careful.

Maybe we all need to be as delicate and careful when discussing the abilities and challenges of all people. We may not all become artists, we may not all talk, but it certainly does not mean that we do not understand or have anything to say.

I was sitting in a waiting room recently when I picked up this from the April 2009 issue of Today’s Parent magazine’s article, Is It A Learning Disability by Marcia Kaye. I turned the pages reading about “conceptual and motor problems,” and in the middle of the page was a photo of a drawing.

“They don’t draw, they scribble,” said the caption.

Who are they? I thought. Does she really know who she is referring to?

The they, is the Adam who when he made is first intentional scribble on the page, I jumped happily. Whose “motor problems,” and indeed they are challenges, in holding a pencil or a crayon seemed to be surpassed. At least the first step had been made. You see, I’ve kept every one of Adam’s “scribbles,” his effort rewarding by his marking that later turned to a happy face, a letter, a sun and a tree and one day, a happy face with long hair which he named “mommy,” at the age of six. The theyare people. They are Adam. They are individuals who are challenged but not unintelligent, who continue to progress at their own rate on the exterior, while on the inside, have many ideas and things to share.

And then there is the category of Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, which I read with great interest. For the Today’s Parent article stated that “this category encompasses non-verbal learning disabilities (NLD’s), which is a controversial area, with possible overlap into Asperger’s syndrome and mental health issues. But the LDAC [Learning Disabilities Association of Canada] considers NLD to be a bona fide learning disability. A child with an NLD may have a great vocabulary, a good memory and an excellent grasp of detail, but miss the bigger picture. He may be a good reader, but a poor comprehender…if you say ‘Oh great, I have to get a root canal!’ they may take you seriously.” It goes on to describe the social awkwardness and anxiety issues that we so often talk about with regards to autism.”

And to to muddy the waters even a little bit more, we have the discussions over DSM V [Diagnostic Statistical Manual] and removing Aspergers or what differentiates individuals along the autism spectrum:

The Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ND) work group’s discussions have focused on three areas:

8) How/where to discuss cultural influences on diagnosis (e.g., Korean use of reactive attachment disorder rather than ASD to avoid family stigmatization).

What is most poignant to me is the purpose of both the differentiation and the suggestion that the atypicalities are abnormal rather than a way of being in the world. If Adam’s way of obtaining and processing information about his environment and the people around him are respected (as they are in his household and school), then he continues to grow, mature and learn. And while there continues to be little research that truly helps us understand how “severity” has often to do more with outward “functioning” rather than intelligence, I struggle with articles that fail to discuss how society tends to want to categorize and differentiate individuals based on the severity of their learning disability rather than discussing how people with different or atypical learning needs learn and how we can better support them.

When I read the suggestions for broadening autism to emcompass Aspergers and other characteristics in the DSM V, the issue as I see it is not the damaging effects that calling Asperger’s or PDD-NOS or NLD to autism is to the person or family. For I view it as the families’ discomfort in perhaps being associated with autism. I see the issue is a continued determinism about autism and herein lies the problem. Until autism and many issues are no longer viewed as problems to be solved, but rather atypicalities that require our understanding and providing for, we will forever find ourselves spinning on the hamster’s wheel.

Adam had a more verbal day today. I guess that’s normal lingo for a family with an autistic child who has real trouble with verbal communication. One his “more verbal” days, he can get out phrases and sometimes full sentences. He can take his teacher to the closet, grab his lunch bag, put on his velcro shoes and proclaim “go home!” twenty minutes before dismissal. He can come home and reach for his toy alligator from the shelf and then find a smooth concave shell and say to me “crown it.” When I acknowledge that he’s pretending it’s the Alligator King from Sesame Street (yes he can watch the video about 500 times a day if we let him), Adam is very pleased. He crowns his pretend alligator a few times and moves its mouth as if he’s trying to help the toy talk. I pause to wonder what Adam thinks as he manipulates the mouth with no sound.

I imagine all the things he wants to say to me on tougher communication days, and how frustrating it must feel. I imagine all the questions he has to ask his parents regarding their recent separation that cannot yet ask, though I am clever enough to know that he thinks them and I have to behave as if to answer them all for my behaviour sets the tone for everything. I have seen and known enough to witness that he can follow every instruction and he understands more than he can express. In the movie Awakenings, Dr. Sayer asks the mother how she knows what her catatonic son is saying. She replies, “You’re not a mother. A mother knows.” It is true in my home as well. For seven years every sound, every move, every expression and I just know. Sometimes I have to be careful to listen because I actually may be paying more attention to all those other subtle behaviours instead of that speech he tries so hard to get out. I suppose my actions also speak louder than words as they model for Adam and they may have become just as important as facund explanations. Perhaps if we were observed carefully as a unit, others would see this daily orchestration that we have come to take for granted as much as those who speak take what they say for granted. In our house, the saying “actions speak louder than words,” cannot more more true.

Adam also has many abilities in helping out mom and dad, for he loves us both so much. I think it’s just one of his very precious gifts to us, and that he gives to others (although mom and dad are in that exclusive category). I know that Adam is a wonderful, loving boy who will give this gift to many during his life and I know he will bestow the new people in his life with that blessing. I guess, in a very special way, he is a lot like the king’s seventh son. In my opinion, he deserves my crown, and I hope he won’t mind the dents.

I’m leaving my theme of writing about children for a moment to disseminate today’s article in The Globe and Mail here.

It defintely makes a lot of sense to us as Adam has learned to play piano using visuals and patterns. He just had his first recital last week and beamed with “hey, that applause is for me?” kind-of-pride that just swells and oozes with, well….joy.