"Strange Son", by Portia Iversen

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Strange Son is the story of "Two Mothers, Two Sons, and the Quest to Unlock the Hidden World of Autism".

In order to read through this remarkable story, I had to temporarily set aside my predjudices against NTs and curebies when I found myself judging the author as shallow and codependent for projecting her own needs and fears onto her autistic child. She wants to "save him, to cure him, to help him get better" because she is horrified at the thought of what his life must be like, trying to imagine not how he perceives and experiences the world with uncontrollable physical behavior and no communication skills, but how she would in his place. With no direct evidence of his intellectual capacity, she doesn't even know if he understands most of what she says. But regardless of her motivations, she does gradually learn how he sees the world, and when he learns to communicate, to establish the rapport she so desperately needs while finally being able to understand and respond to his needs.

The author's son, Dov, was diagnosed as autistic at eighteen months. Unwilling to accept the inadequate definition of autism and minimal treatment options that doctors offered, Portia set out to learn everything she could about Autism Spectrum Disorders. Her research led her to the story of an adolescent boy in India who, although low-functioning with repetitive behaviors and mutism, had been taught to communicate by pointing at letters on a board. His autobiography demonstrated that "he can communicate his thoughts and feelings through remarkable prose and poetry, written in fluent English." Portia wondered "How could someone who was severely autistic write like this? It seemed impossible." and "How had his mother taught him this?" Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings, was equally amazed: "it has usually been assumed that deeply autistic people are scarcely capable of introspection or deep thought, let alone of poetic or metaphoric leaps of the imagination -- or, if they are, that they are incapable of communicating these thoughts to us. Tito gives the lie to all these assumptions, and forces us to reconsider the condition of the deeply autistic."

Portia realized that Tito could be "a window into autism", an invaluable interpreter of autistic behavior that she often found baffling and perplexing. She invited Tito and his mother to the United States, hoping to match up his insightful perceptions with scientific testing, as well as to study his mother's teaching methods. Wanting to promote understanding and respect for autistic people, Tito endured months of testing with varying degrees of patience and results. But Tito's explanations for his test responses provided the researchers with profound insight and new avenues of investigation, particularly in the field of sensory integration which seemed to be the main obstacle to Tito's speech.

Meanwhile, between tests Tito's mother Soma had begun teaching Portia's son the way she taught Tito, starting with an alphabet board. Portia and her husband were amazed and delighted when their son began pointing out words and sentences. Apparently he had been learning all along, including the Hebrew alphabet from posters in his preschool. But without mainstream communication skills, he left his parents with only their intuition to deduce his intelligence, perceptions and feelings.

With Portia's support and connections, Soma eventually began teaching other autistic children to communicate. The story ends with Soma setting up a new school in another part of the country, where she can now afford a full-time assistant for Tito.

Overall, I found this to be a powerful story of fulfillment. The author's voice will appeal to other NT parents having difficulty understanding their autistic children. I hope it gives them the strength and compassion to look beyond the socially unacceptable behaviors in order to relate to the person inside. And, maybe, to rephrase their need to "cure" autism into developing productive and insightful ways to cope with it instead of getting rid of it.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!
I find most depictions of Autism to be biased and stereotypical.
"Getting The Truth Out" is one of the few places where one
can see and learn about Autism from an "Autist's" point of view.

I think she IS shallow and codependent, if not worse. The book is full of drama suggesting that she is seeking sympathy for herself rather than genuinely concerned for her son and/or trying to understand him. I read some of it and put it aside because I felt it was not for me. Maybe I will read it in full one day, either when I build up enough emotional defenses to cope with this, or when I want to deliberately make myself sick. I've had enough of such drama as it is, thank you very much.

Tito, himself, posted a review on Amazon saying that the book was "like a slap on his face" because of the graphic descriptions of his behavior that involved epithets ranging from "like a wild beast" to "demon-possessed". He said he had wholly trusted Iversen and didn't expect her to write something like this behind his back. The review was then repeatedly deleted by Amazon until Tito reposted it once more, remarking on the oddness of its disappearance and saying that he was going to keep posting it again and again until they left it alone.

This does say something.

You should also read more about how Soma "taught" Tito. She beat him in such a way that it disgusted her husband and her mother (the latter called her callous and said she was unfit to be a parent). I'm told that in India beating children is a normal thing, so no wonder Soma can't understand what she has done wrong, but the fact that Iversen and the whole of CAN apparently find no fault with it either is rather alarming. It's like saying - come on parents, do batter your autistic children, it is fine. Never mind that doing the same to a "normal" child would land on in prison and/or with one's right to parenthood being taken away.

I'm also slightly disturbed by how Tito is made out to be not only remarkable (which he is), but the ONLY such remarkable person with severe autism. Quite a few other autistic people who were/are just as profoundly affected have written books, and some came before Tito (Amanda Baggs on www.autistics.org, in her essay on Tito and "The mind tree", mentions David Eastham as one of these people). But, for some reason, everybody forgets about them. Everybody forgets about parents like the father of Iris Johansson (not the writer, her psychologist namesake), who never made any drama out of his daughter's autism - being a peasant, he didn't even know what it was, - or, for that matter, never thought her "sick" or flawed in some way, just different, amusing and at times difficult. When he was pressured to place her in a special institution, he declined, saying that she is fine just the way she is, and she should become whoever she is meant to become, even if she will just peel potatoes on the farm - in any case, she will still be needed in the community, and there will always be people to take of her and make sure she is well. At the same time, he did everything to accustom her to other people in a way that was natural and unobtrusive, without ever forcing her to do anything. He never hit her, and I doubt that he even considered doing this. Now Iris attributes the remarkable adjustment she was able to make to him, saying she would never be able to make it without his support.

Why not glorify this instead?

The book can be seen here:

http://bolandgymnasiet.blogspot.com/200 ... rndom.html

It is in Swedish and is also availiable in Russian online, but I'm not sure if it's ever been translated into English. If any Russian-speaking people here would like to have it, just drop me a PM or email me and I will send it to you.