Last fall, I made an autism presentation in Los Angeles to a group of 200 exclusively Spanish-speaking parents. They were grateful and gracious, and many made efforts to communicate with me in English (I otherwise had translators). When I stood before them, I affirmed that their autistic children are intelligent, gorgeous human beings entitled to the space they occupy. I was stunned by the collective reaction of the audience: people sobbed in relief; grown men, fathers, buried their faces in their...

The first two essays in this series presented a broad overview of many of the films produced over the past forty years that have portrayed the many facets of the human condition. In this essay I want to focus on several books that have brought about fundamental shifts in our understanding of autism, its causes and its consequences. Prior to 1964, one of the prevailing and prominent medical understandings of the cause of autism had been articulated by Bruno Bettelheim. Autism was seen as having psychological...

Music as therapy is becoming the new “it” discussion. With high profile books such as Oliver Sack’s “Musicophilia” and Daniel Levitin’s bestseller “This is Your Brain on Music,” music as therapy is making its’ way into mainstream media. Both books identify music as a very complex brain process while giving the reader a simple understanding of how music is useful and beneficial for our well-being and growth. Levitin reminds us that music is a global process. Therefore music does...

During infancy and childhood, there are several pivotal times for the development of gross motor movements and muscular development. Parents are often concerned if a child does not reach a particular age-related goal (walking, for example) within a narrow time frame. Children will vary in their gross motor acquisition, and some may develop later than others. In the case of individuals on the autism spectrum, physiological, or movement deficits can inhibit the development of functionally sound gross...

Many years ago Charles Hart, author of Without Reason: A Family Copes with Two Generations of Autism, shared a story about his son Ted that gave me a window both on the social / communication problems that are hallmark features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and their relationship to theory of mind. He said that when Ted was approximately fourteen years of age, sitting across the room reading a book, he came across a word that he didn’t understand. He pointed to it and—without getting up...

I got a letter from a lovely parent about her teenage daughter, a wonderful long distance runner. Yet the coach was stumped. Why wouldn’t she compete? She’d just let the others pass her, retaining her same rhythmic pace. Non-autistic people have a consistent capacity to simultaneously process sense of self and other. This is necessary to many things… to imagining what another person might think, to gaining insight about one’s effect on others, to having that insight AND being able to then...