Autism

Autism and Case of Autism

Redesigning the brain

The mystery of autism – a human mind that cannot conceive of other minds – is one of the most baffling and poignant in psychiatry, and one of the most severe developmental disorders of childhood. It is called a “pervasive developmental disorder,” because so many aspects of development are disturbed: intelligence, perception, socializing skills, language, and emotion.

Most autistic children have an IQ of less than 70. They have major problems connecting socially to others and may, in severe cases, treat people like inanimate objects, neither greeting them nor acknowledging them as human beings. At times it seems that autistics don't have a sense that “other minds” exist in the world. They also have perceptual processing difficulties and are thus often hypersensitive to sound and touch, easily overloaded by stimulation. (That may be one reason autistic children often avoid eye contact: the stimulation from people, especially when coming from many senses at once, is too intense). Their neural networks appear to be overactive, and many of these children have epilepsy.

Because so many autistic children have language impairments, clinicians began to suggest  the Fast ForWord program for them. They never anticipated what might happen. Parents of autistic children who did Fast ForWord told Merzenich that their children became more connected socially. He began asking, were the children simply being trained to be more attentive listeners? And he was fascinated by the fact that with Fast ForWord both the language symptoms and the autistic symptoms seemed to be fading together. Could this mean that the language and autistic problems were different expressions of a common problem?

Two studies of autistic children confirmed what Merzenich had been hearing. One, a language study, showed that Fast ForWord quickly moved autistic children from severe language impairment to the normal range. But another pilot study of one hundred autistic children showed that Fast ForWord had a significant impact on their autistic symptoms as well. Their attention spans improved. Their sense of humor improved. They became more connected to people. They developed better eye contact, began greeting people and addressing them by name, spoke with them, and said good-bye at the end of their encounters. It seemed the children were beginning to experience the world as filled with other human minds.

The incidence of autism has been climbing at a staggering rate that can't be explained by genetics alone. Photo by Elena.

Case of Autism

Lauralee, an eight-year-old autistic girl, was diagnosed with moderate autism when she was three. Even as an eight-year-old she rarely used language. She didn't answer to her name, and to her parents, it seemed she was not hearing it. Sometimes she would speak, but when she did, “she had her own language,” says her mother, “which was often unintelligible.” If she wanted juice, she didn't ask for it.  She would make gestures and pull her parents over to the cabinets to get things for her.

She had other autistic symptoms, among them the repetitive movements that autistic children use to try to contain their sense of being overwhelmed. According to her mother, Lauralee had “the whole works – the flapping of the hands, toe-walking, a lot of energy, biting. And she couldn't tell me what she was feeling.”

She was very attached to trees. When her parents took her walking in the evening to burn off energy, she'd often stop, touch a tree, hug it, and speak to it.

Lauralee was unusually sensitive to sounds.  “She had bionic ears,” says her mother. “When she was little, she would often cover her hears. She couldn't tolerate certain music on the radio, like classical and slow music.” At her pediatrician's office she heard sounds from the floor upstairs that others didn't. At home she would go over to the sinks, fill them with water, then wrap herself around the pipes, hugging them, listening to the water drain through them.

Lauralee's father is in the navy and served in the Iraq war in 2003. When the family was transferred to California, Lauralee was enrolled in a public school with a special-ed class that used Fast ForWord. The program took her about two hours a day for eight weeks to complete.

When she finished it, “she had an explosion in language,” says her mother, “and began to speak more and use complete sentences. She could tell me about her days at school. Before I would just say, :Did you have a good day or a bad day?” Now she was able to say what she did, and she remembered details. If she got into a bad situation, she would be able to tell me, and I wouldn't have to prompt her to get it out of her. She also found it easier to remember things.” Lauralee has always loved to read, but now she is reading longer books, non-fiction and the encyclopedia. “She is listening to quieter sounds now and can tolerate different sounds from the radio,” says her mother. “It was an awakening for her. And with the better communication, there was an awakening for all of us. It was a big blessing.”

By Norman Doidge (excerpt from The Brain That Changes Itself).

Better communication can help to an awakening. Illustration by Elena.