Autism and Us by Eustacia Cutler

Author:Eustacia Cutler [Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future Horizons
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It’s the 1950s. Parents of autistic children now read every word Bruno publishes. He’s their hero. But again there is a nagging problem: he yearns to be their only hero. A quick clash of wills with Sylvester; she’s forced to depart, and voila! Bruno with his Viennese accent and scary black spectacles is free to interpret autism all by himself.

Meanwhile, back at in the dormitories of the Orthogenic School, life is far from happy. Eric Schopler—who has come from Vienna to Chicago for the sole purpose of studying autism therapy under Bettelheim—says he’s seen more than he wants to see of Bruno’s cruelty to children and therapists. Most of all, his cruelty to young, frightened mothers.

As soon as he can claim his doctorate, Eric Schopler leaves Chicago for the University of North Carolina. In 1972 he will start his own school there and teach parents how to be co-therapists for their children. Called TEACCH, an acronym that stands for “Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication related Handicapped Children,” Schopler’s school will, in time, lead the way in autism therapy.

Eric Schopler is not the only one to disapprove of Bruno Bettelheim. Though it’s still only the 1950s, the social climate of the entire country has begun to shift. Mothers are less sure they deserve to be demonized, and fathers agree. 1956 is the year that Bernard and Gloria Rimland’s son is born with autism. Rimland, a Ph.D. in psychology, has been trained to believe that psychosocial forces are the principal cause of mental illness. But he and Gloria— along with their family doctor—are convinced that Mark’s rages and dislike of being touched don’t fit any known pattern of mental illness. Remembering something they both learned in Psych I, Bernard and Gloria burrow among the old textbooks stored in their garage, open them up, and flip through their tattered pages. Yessir! Here it is! “Early Infantile Autism.” The text offers enough clues to spur Rimland and his cohort Benson Ginsberg to undertake the neurological research that will lead in time to Rimland’s book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior.

Though the book won’t be published until 1964, a media fight with Bettelheim begins when Rimland states publicly that autism is an organic disorder and should be treated like diabetes or cretinism.

The following dialogue between Bettelheim and Rimland is on record:4

Bruno: If autism is neurological, how come my Orthogenic School achieves an 85% reversal of the disorder?

Bernie: Where’s your evidence for reversal?

Bruno: I have an 85% cure rate!

Bernie: Let’s see your record. You have no hard evidence? Yet you’re not ashamed to shame parents. Shame them so severely that we [he and Benson Ginsberg] can’t get a straight story out of them. Give me what you’ve got. And I don’t want to read any cute vignettes.

Bruno: The literature needs revision.

Bernie: I hear the Ford Foundation wants statistics. You took their money. What are you going to tell them?

Bruno: Until the literature on autism is revised, I give out only behaviors.

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