Real Things about Real Boys
A Real Boy: How Autism Shattered Our Lives - and Made a Family from the Pieces is the title of a new book by Christopher Stevens and his wife, Nicola, about their 11-year-old son, David. In an interview on Keep the Doctor Away, Christopher Stevens talks about finding out that David was autistic, what surprised him and his wife most about autism (the “sheer prevalence of it”), David’s awareness of the world (”David’s completely aware of everything… he just interprets the world differently”), some “negative experiences” with those who do not understand autism, and “the biggest misconception about autism.” I have to quote one of those negative experiences as it’s quite negative and in contrast to the Stevens’ loving acceptance:
Some people, particularly in the health service, are highly paid but the nonsense they talk can be shocking. “Your son is like a garden full of weeds,” one psychologist decided, at the end of six hour-long sessions. “You must uproot the weeds and replace them with flowers.” A tabloid horoscope column wouldn’t get away with spouting rubbish like that.
The worst thing a professional ever said about Charlie was on a the second day of an evaluation at a children’s hospital in Minnesota. Charlie could not yet talk, had been observed and asked to all kinds of things that he could not or would not do, and simply sitting on the floor with his large stuffed Barney toy; he was not looking too animated. (And it was 95 degrees that day in July.) “Is he always like that?” asked said not to be named professional.
Negative and a “big misconception”—-how one often wishes that one could send a video of Charlie dribbling (two-handed for most of the way) up and down the court while a boy of about the same age and about two-thirds his height played defense!
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, book, children, Family, flowers, garden, parents, pdd-nos, Psychology, weedsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Books, Family, Parenting, Psychology
2 opinions for Real Things about Real Boys
Cliff
Jan 25, 2008 at 11:46 am
Ha! You wonder whether Stevens doesn’t like metaphor or if he’s objecting to the idea itself, and, oddly enough, the metaphor represents a commonly held idea which, in my mind, is wrong, and yet from the rest of the context it sounds like he’s going after the metaphor, not the idea itself. I could be wrong (but then Stevens would have to admit, probably, that many reputable people do, in fact, spout that garbage, but perhaps without the usage of weeds).
Cliff
Owl
Jan 25, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’ve never met a professional psychologist that was that bad. I’ve met enough people who weren’t even in a medical field who were a lot worse than that, such as suggesting mild autism was defined by a complete lack of moral reasoning… But never any horrible professionals. Of course I’ve never dealt with that many so…what would I know?
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