In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan, Caren Zucker
Authors: John Donvan, Caren Zucker
Ads: Link
remained out of reach. “He still went on writing letters with his fingers in the air,” Kanner noted.
The first-grade experiment proceeded past Christmas and into winter. By spring, Donald’s use of language had developed even further. At home, he began engaging in a rough approximation of conversation. Mary would ask specific questions about his day, and he would readily answer. But his responses were narrow and concrete; he never opened up about his thoughts and experiences. He did, however, insist one night on making the entire family play a game he had just learned at school. They all went along with it, following his exceedingly precise instructions. Both Mary and Beamon understood how remarkable it was that Donald was entering into a game at all. This was a first in his life—playing with other children.
Donald survived the first grade and returned to school for a second year, and then a third. In a way, the routine of the classroom may have suited his need for sameness: he went to the same building every day, at the same hour, for the same length of time. His seat was always where it was supposed to be, and a bell rang automatically, and reliably, to start and stop activities. One afternoon, when he was nine and a half, he walked into his classroom not knowing that classes had been canceled for the rest of the day. His parents were also unaware of the change. Donald spent the next few hours alone at his desk, writing in a notebook, waiting for the dismissal bell. When it rang, he packed away his things and headed home as usual. His ingrained habits had served him well.
Ultimately, however, school became more demanding, and the difference between him and the other children became more pronounced.Around the time he turned ten, the gap between what the school expected and what Donald was capable of—both academically and socially—grew too wide.
By the spring of 1943, when his original first-grade classmates were making their way through the fourth grade, Donald was back at home, helping his mother with simple chores in return for money for the picture shows he loved. At the same time, his natural skill in arithmetic was strengthened when he made a hobby out of calculating thepublication dates of Time magazine. By chance, he had come across a copy of Time ’s first issue. On the cover it said “Vol. I, No. 1” and the date, “March 3, 1923.” He was fascinated, and became obsessed with figuring out the exact dates on which every subsequent issue was published.
This led toan obsession with calendars. Once, when visiting his mother’s friends, the Rushings, he pulled up a chair in their kitchen so that he could stand up high enough to study their big wall calendar. By the time he was done frantically rifling back and forth through its pages, it was so much the worse for wear that they took it down after he and Mary left.
Donald was stretching his mind, but the seeming impracticality of his efforts was overwhelming. What he was good at did not fit in the classroom anymore. What he was not good at—making sense of reading and history lessons—increasingly got in the way of everyone else’s learning. His adjustment to life, while progressing, was not progressing quickly enough.
With Donald at home again, Mary experienced the full burden of loneliness, frustration, and exhaustion that crushed other mothers in her situation. For the second time in his life, Donald was sent away.
—
I T WAS NOT an institution this time. And in no way was Donald abandoned. The setting, in fact, was a home—a real family home, and getting there from the Triplett residence took all of eighteen minutes by car. Located in the deep Mississippi countryside, well past the last road sign, and at the end of a network of unmarked dirt roads, it was a house on a hill where no electricity or phone lines ran. The place did not even have running water; the toilet was outdoors. But Donald’sparents hoped the couple who lived there
The first-grade experiment proceeded past Christmas and into winter. By spring, Donald’s use of language had developed even further. At home, he began engaging in a rough approximation of conversation. Mary would ask specific questions about his day, and he would readily answer. But his responses were narrow and concrete; he never opened up about his thoughts and experiences. He did, however, insist one night on making the entire family play a game he had just learned at school. They all went along with it, following his exceedingly precise instructions. Both Mary and Beamon understood how remarkable it was that Donald was entering into a game at all. This was a first in his life—playing with other children.
Donald survived the first grade and returned to school for a second year, and then a third. In a way, the routine of the classroom may have suited his need for sameness: he went to the same building every day, at the same hour, for the same length of time. His seat was always where it was supposed to be, and a bell rang automatically, and reliably, to start and stop activities. One afternoon, when he was nine and a half, he walked into his classroom not knowing that classes had been canceled for the rest of the day. His parents were also unaware of the change. Donald spent the next few hours alone at his desk, writing in a notebook, waiting for the dismissal bell. When it rang, he packed away his things and headed home as usual. His ingrained habits had served him well.
Ultimately, however, school became more demanding, and the difference between him and the other children became more pronounced.Around the time he turned ten, the gap between what the school expected and what Donald was capable of—both academically and socially—grew too wide.
By the spring of 1943, when his original first-grade classmates were making their way through the fourth grade, Donald was back at home, helping his mother with simple chores in return for money for the picture shows he loved. At the same time, his natural skill in arithmetic was strengthened when he made a hobby out of calculating thepublication dates of Time magazine. By chance, he had come across a copy of Time ’s first issue. On the cover it said “Vol. I, No. 1” and the date, “March 3, 1923.” He was fascinated, and became obsessed with figuring out the exact dates on which every subsequent issue was published.
This led toan obsession with calendars. Once, when visiting his mother’s friends, the Rushings, he pulled up a chair in their kitchen so that he could stand up high enough to study their big wall calendar. By the time he was done frantically rifling back and forth through its pages, it was so much the worse for wear that they took it down after he and Mary left.
Donald was stretching his mind, but the seeming impracticality of his efforts was overwhelming. What he was good at did not fit in the classroom anymore. What he was not good at—making sense of reading and history lessons—increasingly got in the way of everyone else’s learning. His adjustment to life, while progressing, was not progressing quickly enough.
With Donald at home again, Mary experienced the full burden of loneliness, frustration, and exhaustion that crushed other mothers in her situation. For the second time in his life, Donald was sent away.
—
I T WAS NOT an institution this time. And in no way was Donald abandoned. The setting, in fact, was a home—a real family home, and getting there from the Triplett residence took all of eighteen minutes by car. Located in the deep Mississippi countryside, well past the last road sign, and at the end of a network of unmarked dirt roads, it was a house on a hill where no electricity or phone lines ran. The place did not even have running water; the toilet was outdoors. But Donald’sparents hoped the couple who lived there
Similar Books
