Life, Animated by Ron Suskind

Author:Ron Suskind [Suskind, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781484708781
Publisher: Kingswell
Published: 2014-03-19T07:00:00+00:00

In talking early on to his parents about how Owen spends his time, I picked up that he really loves Disney movies—especially classic Disney, from the ’40s and ’50s, and hits from the early ’90s. They told me that since he had been very young his favorite activity was watching Disney movies and poring over them and then reenacting scenes. He’d had entire scripts memorized, and he could act out every part, and every voice. The intense narrow interest struck me as typical of many autistic kids. Other kids I’d seen had been very interested in cars, or Pokémon, or arcane areas of science and history. But Disney movies are different because they involve relationships and carry emotional complexity.

I decided I would experiment with trying to incorporate this interest early on, simply as a way to connect with a child who had difficulty engaging or expressing himself with pragmatic speech. I started by telling him my favorite scenes from old Disney movies and asking him to reenact them. It was something I could talk to him about. For example, I asked him if he knew the scene in Hercules when Phil is getting discouraged and made fun of as a trainer. He knew the scene and I was struck by how perfectly he remembered the script, and was able to recreate the voices. But even more surprising was how accurately he mimicked the emotions. In one scene, for example, Phil is disgusted with himself and Hercules is encouraging him not to quit. Owen seemed to really inhabit Phil’s despair and Hercules’ compassion and encouragement. Owen infused the dialogue with real feeling, as if he truly grasped the emotional significance of what was at stake. This kind of emotional acuity is generally not supposed to be an autistic kid’s strength. What I thought was especially cool was that he could shift from Phil to Hercules and capture each of their emotions.

One of the parents—I think it was Ron—mentioned to me that he had been given advice from several professionals to discourage Owen’s obsessive interest because it’s self stimulatory and avoidant—meaning he would use it to avoid social interaction and instead retreat into fantasy. I understood that that would be the professional consensus, but I remember thinking, and maybe even saying, “I’m not so sure.” Another option would be to use the movies as a reward for Owen behaving in desired ways, but I thought we could use them in a more integrated way. Often with kids like Owen you are only teaching them to survive in social situations, but his love for Disney could provide the extra spark to help him not just engage competently or without disaster but to actually want to engage. I had this hunch because he and I were so much more connected when he was acting out Disney. When we talked about the movies it felt so much less like work and more like joyous cooperation. It really made him happy to perform, and he seemed happy that I was interested.

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