glider18 wrote:
Over a year ago while waiting for my next gifted class to arrive, I began browsing through some of the online educational videos our school subscribes to. I found one that offered a look into the lives of four children with what was called "childhood behaviorial" issues. I watched the ADHD boy as a psychiatrist analyzed him fighting his way through homework, a girl with an "attachment to home" issue that made her fear leaving her home, a boy with Conduct Disorder who had stolen cars when he was in grade school, and an autistic boy. The autistic boy---clearly Kanner's Autism---oh sorry, that label is gone now, let's say severe autism. You know the type---worthless---no hope---no future---stupid (Hey!, that's not my opinion, that's the world's opinion). He was in his teens and had never spoken a word. All he did was jump up and down on the couch, grab for his mother, flap his hands often, and move his head so much that you would swear it would fall off. He was gone---you know "not at home" so to speak. That brain must be empty of anything worthwhile (again, not my opinion, but the world's opinion). He was so far gone he couldn't even read. Put a book in front of him and its thrown across the room. Try to read to him, and he wasn't even listening---you know, nothing going on in that brain. What a nightmare.
One day, his mother happened to have her computer keyboard on the couch where he was sitting and hopping around. He grabbed the keyboard and began typing. His mother expected to look at the monitor and see something like " hwelktn hgv;ketjo hgljg ke," but instead, you know what she saw? Intelligible typing---accurately spelled and in complete sentences. He talked to his mother for the first time---by a keyboard. When no one thought there was any learning going on in him, he had understood language for many years. But he had not been given the opportunity to talk in a way that he could talk. One must imagine what conversations had gone on around him all these years when no one thought he understood. He probably heard some terrible insulting type of comments about his severe mental state. Had it not been for the incident with the keyboard, where would he be now? But now his future is changed because of adaptation. He isn't worthless, he has hope, he has a future, he isn't stupid---in fact he is quite smart. He just needed a way to be understood by the world in a diverse way---a different way.
There are many stories similar to this one. It is far from unique. The reality is the world fails to understand what is considered different than the norm. Anything different is considered defective. But what is the norm? In our human world it is the largest group of human beings as distinguished by psychological type. And strangely, this group we call the "norm" is not as big a percentage as we think. In fact, at least one in three people on this earth has a mental condition that can be diagnosed as a disorder. Within that multitude of disorders we find autism, one of the most mysterious and least understood of the conditions. With a prevalence of approximately one in a hundred (there are of course varying estimates here), the autism spectrum should be more understood than it is. But who cares? Well I care, and you should care, but does the world care?
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Although this story is framed as being illustrative of the importance of acceptance of people as they are, I'm getting something different from it. What changed things for this man wasn't acceptance...it was communication. If his parents had accepted him totally he wouldn't have had to grow up hearing defeatist things about him, but he would still be just as trapped and limited. Supposed he was accepted unconditionally by his family and they never said anything bad about him but also didn't give him a keyboard? He'd be just as trapped and frustrated as he was before, though he'd be spared hearing negative things. I think acceptance is important but too much acceptance can trap a person. If they had accepted him fully as a non-communicative person and weren't upset by that, he'd still be horribly frustrated because he had so much to say. I realize the keyboard revelation was an accident, but if there was complete acceptance of the "fact" (incorrect observation) that a person had no ability to communicate, keyboards might never make their way into non-verbal peoples' hands.
I think the most important thing...even beyond acceptance....is communication. I think there is an enormous amount of frustration that builds up in a person who can't communicate through usual channels and if the people around them just accept this lack of communication as an acceptable difference, the person just gets more and more frustrated. I think it is of untmost importance to
not accept that people can't communicate and explore every possible avenue of communication. This changed everything for this man. It changed everything pretty famously for Helen Keller too. I think finding a way for people to communicate is more important than simply accepting them.
16 Feb 2010, 4:27 pm
