Below is a guest reading list by journalist Genna Buck. Buck wrote our recent Longreads Member Pick, “Autistic and Searching for a Home,” published by Montreal’s Maisonneuve magazine. She was generous enough to share this follow-up reading list—one story, one documentary, and three books—on what it’s like for those who suffer from mental illness, and for the families that care for them. Read more…
All through December, we’ll be featuring Longreads’ Best of 2014. To get you ready, here’s a list of every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
For many autistic teens and adults, the flirting, dating and the rest of the romance rigamarole don’t come easy. That’s where programs like PEERS come in.
Ron Suskind explores how his autistic son Owen found a voice through the lessons and sidekicks in Disney films. The story is an excerpt from the journalist’s new book, Life, Animated:
Owen’s chosen affinity clearly opened a window to myth, fable and legend that Disney lifted and retooled, just as the Grimm Brothers did, from a vast repository of folklore. Countless cultures have told versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” which dates back 2,000 years to the Latin “Cupid and Psyche” and certainly beyond that. These are stories human beings have always told themselves to make their way in the world.
But what draws kids like Owen to these movies is something even more elemental. Walt Disney told his early animators that the characters and the scenes should be so vivid and clear that they could be understood with the sound turned off. Inadvertently, this creates a dream portal for those who struggle with auditory processing, especially, in recent decades, when the films can be rewound and replayed many times.
In the latest New York Times Magazine, Ron Suskind explores how his autistic son Owen found a voice through the lessons and sidekicks in Disney films. The story is an excerpt from the journalist’s new book, Life, Animated:
Owen’s chosen affinity clearly opened a window to myth, fable and legend that Disney lifted and retooled, just as the Grimm Brothers did, from a vast repository of folklore. Countless cultures have told versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” which dates back 2,000 years to the Latin “Cupid and Psyche” and certainly beyond that. These are stories human beings have always told themselves to make their way in the world.
But what draws kids like Owen to these movies is something even more elemental. Walt Disney told his early animators that the characters and the scenes should be so vivid and clear that they could be understood with the sound turned off. Inadvertently, this creates a dream portal for those who struggle with auditory processing, especially, in recent decades, when the films can be rewound and replayed many times.
Disney provided raw material, publicly available and ubiquitous, that Owen, with our help, built into a language and a tool kit. I’m sure, with enough creativity and energy, this can be done with any number of interests and disciplines. For some kids, their affinity is for train schedules; for others, it’s maps. While our household may not be typical, with a pair of writerly parents and a fixation on stories — all of which may have accentuated and amplified Owen’s native inclinations — we have no doubt that he shares a basic neurological architecture with people on the autism spectrum everywhere.
A look at how a cofounder of the Home Depot started the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, Ga., which has been named an autism center of excellence by the National Institutes of Health. The center has hired a scientist from Yale who is looking at how eye-tracking technology can revolutionize autism treatment:
“Within ten months of arriving, Klin and his team competed with fifty-five other autism centers around the country for a National Institutes of Health award. Only three, including Marcus, won. Named an autism center of excellence, Marcus received an $8.3 million grant, much of which will be put toward continuing to research differences in ‘social-visual and vocal engagement’ among autistic infants. The center has built four eye-tracking labs in the last two years, where babies like Ansley Brane—who is low risk—can be tested for signs of autism. (The center’s fiscal health has improved too, though it still needs patrons: Since Children’s took over, operating losses have dropped from $3.2 million to $1.3 million per year.)
“‘It’s a very simple equation,’ says Klin. ‘You identify early, you treat early, you help these children fulfill their promise. It’s good for everybody. If you don’t do that, then we are stuck with the kinds of incredible treatment programs we have in the center, which I hope to put out of business one day.'”
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