Unlocking Autism

AttitudeLive

(Music)

(Ross) One of the really hard things I found at the beginning was I hoped Claude would be mild,

and nobody could tell me at the
beginning where he was going to be.

There's an awful lot of unknown,
and so I'm hoping he's going to be fine

and then another day you'd be
completely overwhelmed by the idea

that he's going to be non-verbal
and severely disabled.

(music)

It's a really tough process to go through to accept that this is what I've got and it's okay.

Martin and I often say, well we couldn't
love Claude any more if he was normal.

I mean, it would be nicer and easier
but we wouldn't love him any more

and we don't love him any less
because he's the way he is.

But it takes a lot of time to get to the
acceptance that

that's Claude and that's fine.

(music)

Ross Hill has spent her working life studying
the mysteries of the mind.

She's a neurologist, a doctor, and
a specialist in disorders of the brain.

(Ross) Claude come here please.

But when it comes to her own son
the mystery remains.

(Ross) He's got some shorts,
we'll just find him some undies.

Claude undies on please.

(Ross) I can remember when
Claude was first diagnosed,

thinking I'm not that person,
I'm the person on the other side of the desk.

I'm the doctor telling the family
that you've got this problem.

I never saw myself as the person
on the other side of the desk.

I was like I can't do this,
and feeling overwhelmed by it.

But you actually have no choice,
pretty much.

You have to actually still get up and do
all the banal, drudgery things you do everyday

and you don't have any choice.

(Ross) Claude sit on the couch please.
Claude sit down.

(Claude) Moans.

(Ross) He mostly is on the move
and when he gets very tired

he will sit on the couch for a little while.

He likes to twirl and if he can't
find something handy like a scarf

or belt, he'll just get a long piece of toilet paper.

(Ross) He mostly likes being where people aren't.
If people come over to visit,

he'll usually absent himself
and he'll be wondering around the garden.

(music)

(Martin) He's just endlessly roaming around,
and anything that has changed

from the last time he was in that spot,
he will pick up and walk off with it

and examine it, and eventually lose interest
in it and toss it.

Now it seems as though throwing things
into the water is endlessly fun.

So your cellphones, your electronic keys,
your remote controls...

(Ross) It's the first place you look
if you can't find anything,

especially if it's a smallish thing -
go and have a look in the pool.

Claude appeared to develop just like any other baby until the age of two,

then he began to regress, losing language
and becoming fixated on things like

watching a cartoon program over and over.

As a neurologist, Ross was keenly aware
of what that might mean.

(Ross) There are some core features that
you see in autism,

and the first is to do with social,
and communication, and interaction.

And the second one is to do wtih
stereotyped behaviors.

So for Claude, the stereotype thing is twirling things, they can be visual things as well.

Twirling the wheels of the car rather than
pretending to drive along the road.

And then you can have that with or without
intellectual impairment.

So you can have normal or above
average intellect,

but have those social
and communication difficulties

and that need for rigidity and sameness
and those stereotype things.

(Ross) Claude come sit down please.

(Ross) So you can see Claude has the full house,
that he's got the intellectual impairment

and he's got almost no language.

And he's got the stereotyped behaviors and
almost no real social interaction and communication.

So that places him at the seveare end of the scale.

(Claude) Moans.

(Ross) This is the sort of noise he makes
a lot of the time.

And I'm not sure whether he does it because it
blocks out a lot of the environmental noise

and it's kind of predictable.
You know, it's his own sound.

He seems quite happy.

This is one of his perfectly happy noises.
He has a variety of clicks and other sounds.

Claude?
But yeah this is normal for Claude.

(Ross )Squeeze?

(Claude) Squeeze

This is a sensory thing and it's well documented

that a lot of people with autism spectrum disorders
like firm pressure.

So they just like to be squeezed and squashed.

And it must be something sensory that
they feel more comfortable with it.

(Ross) What is it Claude?
I...?

(Claude) Squeeze.

(Ross) The only way to get him to talk
is for him to really want something enough

that the only way he'll get it
is if he says something,

because he doesn't use words very much at all,
even words he's got.

So if you can find something that he really likes
and then make him use a word to get it

like squeeze, or something he wants to eat,
it forces him to use some language,

otherwise I don't think he really understands
what the point of language is.

(Annabel) Hi Dad

(Martin) Hi Annie how was school?

(Annabel) Good. Hi Mum.

(Ross) Hi Annie how was school?
(Annabel) Good Good.

(Ross) Have you seen Claude?
(Annabel) No.

(Ross) Can you just check on him for me please?
(Annabel) Sure

(Annabel) Hi Mr C...hi
(Claude) Hi.

Older sister Annabel is one of the few people Claude responds too.

Too much noise, too much touch
gives him sensory overload.

But with Annabel he is content.

(music)

(Annabel) He doesn't really live in the same
world that we live in

in the sense that he more lives in his head.

We tend to think of it like we're tools,
so he uses us to get what he needs,

whether he knows who we are or whatever
I'm not sure. I would like to think so.

He's definitely more comfortable around us
than he is around some other people.

But we're not really sure what goes on
in that head of his.

So Claude would have room to roam
the family moved to a farmlet in North Auckland.

They've tried every avenue to help Claude,
hundreds of hours of therapy,

expert advise and medicines.

(Ross) We feel as if we've done everything
that we can do along the way to try and help him

and try and understand what's going on.
(Martin) Every therapy, every diet,

every supplement, every drug -
it's all been tried.

(Ross) We've done as much as we could,
which is what you want to feel

that in the long run we've tried everything we could
that was safe and that we were comfortable with,

so we've done a lot over the years with him.

And it's hard to know how he would have been
if we hadn't done all that.

(Martin) Hi Claude are you going to come
and have some dinner?

Have you been playing the piano?
Bing, bing, bing...

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