LITMIR.BIZ

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success in the workplace.

      In all, I find my position serving as an assistant professor at Adelphi University very meaningful, and I plan to continue teaching there as long as possible.

       EARLY YEARS

      I am the youngest of three children. My brother, Martin, is 2 years older. It was clear that he had difficulties at birth and later received a diagnosis of mild to moderate retardation. He has certain skills that make me wonder if he has some autistic characteristics, as well. Most of the time, we got along fine and had the usual sibling rivalry. Here’s an example of a misunderstood sensory event. One day, while we were playing on a swing set, I was sensorially overloaded by contacting the cold bars of the gym set with the underside of my knees. This caused a meltdown, and I banged my head against some flagstones and had to get stitches. It was many years before I told my parents that it was in fact the sensory overload that had caused the incident, and not anything my brother had done. On the whole, we were expected to treat each other civilly and help each other when needed.

      My sister, Robin, is 4 years older. I used to think she got all the “neurologically typical” genes, but I am finding out that’s not entirely true. For example, as a child, my sister used to yell at me for making too much noise as I walked around my bedroom, which adjoined to hers. In a recent conversation with her, I found out that she has significant hearing sensitivity.

      After my first 18 months of otherwise typical development, I lost functional communication, had meltdowns, spun in circles, and demonstrated several other autistic characteristics. Because my brother had received a diagnosis of mild to moderate mental retardation, my parents knew it was not that. They suspected I was intelligent, and upon the urging of their pediatrician, at the age of 2½ I received a diagnosis of “strong autistic tendencies, childhood psychosis, and atypical development.”

       My Parents Kept Me Out of an Institution

      Fortunately, my parents refuted the recommendation to have me institutionalized (thought to be warranted for such a diagnosis in 1964) and advocated for my admittance to the James Jackson Putnam Children’s Center after a delay of a year and a half. In the interim, my parents provided what we would today refer to as an intensive, home-based early-intervention program that emphasized movement, sensory integration, music, narration, and imitation.

      At first, my parents tried to get me to imitate them—especially my mother. When that failed, they started imitating my sounds and movements, which made me aware of them in my environment. Only then were they able to pull me out of my own world and into theirs. In my experience, the most important educational implication has been that before any significant teaching can happen, a trusting relationship has to be developed between teacher and student.

       I Took Watches Apart and Put Them Back Together

      At age 4, I started dismantling watches with a sharp kitchen knife. When my mother saw me demonstrating this skill, she began to provide me with additional watches, radios, and other things to take apart. Also, my parents both sat with me to make sure I got these things back together again in good working order! It was not hard for me to reassemble these mechanical devices. However, it was an important lesson my parents imparted—that if I took something apart, I should be able to put it back together again.

      My mother did most of the caretaking and “early intervention,” because in those days, it was the father’s responsibility to work and earn money. Additionally, I think my father was pretty confused in terms of what to do with me. However, he still loved and supported me the best way he knew how.

       My Parents Expected Proper Behavior

      My parents expected me to show proper behavior at mealtimes, chew with my mouth closed, ask to be excused at the end of the meal, push in my chair when leaving the table, and participate in family chores, such as clearing dishes, taking out the trash, walking and feeding the dog, taking care of the cat, mowing the lawn, keeping my room clean, shoveling snow out of the driveway, and doing laundry when I was older.

      Being Jewish, I was expected to go to religious services on Sundays and to attend Sunday school, just like my sister. My brother, who had more cognitive difficulties, did not have to go to Sunday school but still had to sit through the Sunday services, most likely because there was no special education version of religious school at that time. Sunday services and school also meant changing into nice but scratchy clothes, which I took off immediately upon returning home.

      My brother and I both had bar mitzvah ceremonies at age 13, as is customary. Again, because of my brother’s cognitive challenges, his requirements for reading and reciting Hebrew were limited to repeating another person as they recited short phrases in Hebrew. However, I was expected to do everything the others did, which I found exceedingly challenging. When I failed to improve with private tutoring in Hebrew, my parents made a recording of one of the elders at the temple, who recited the entire passage from the Torah that I needed to learn, plus all of the important prayers. Because the words were chanted in a singsong voice, they were easier to remember.

      I put on a good show at the bar mitzvah, reciting everything in a sort of echolalic fashion, right down to the gravelly old voice of the elder who had recorded what to say. I had no idea what I was saying, other than knowing in a general way that I was talking about the first three days of creation, which I had read about in an old bible we had at home. However, it worked!

       I Had to Earn Money for Things I Wanted

      My parents addressed whatever basic needs we had. But if I wanted something extra, I had to earn the money to pay for it. For example, I wanted a new, “grown-up” bicycle that cost $50. I was expected to earn that money by doing a series of odd jobs around the house, mowing neighbors’ lawns, and shoveling snow. It took about 6 months to earn enough money to pay for it, but I did it.

      When I was given my grandfather’s car after he could no longer drive it, I was expected to pay for my own gas, insurance, and maintenance. During the summertime when I was home from college, I was expected to contribute $25 a week toward paying the family expenses.

       ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS

      By the time I entered the Putnam school as a child, after the “early intervention” provided by my parents and some speech therapy, my speech was beginning to return. I was reevaluated, and my diagnosis was upgraded from “psychosis” to “neurosis,” so things were looking up for me.

      I was in a class with three other boys in what seemed like more of a play-based intervention, which was focused on developing social interaction rather than ABA. To me, the most important variable of that program in terms of its successful outcome was its intensity.

      I saw psychotherapists once a week for about 10 years, beginning at age 5. Some were better than others. What I hated most about these sessions was when a doctor decided I should play with either play dough or puppets. Both of them smelled terrible, and the play dough also left a residue on my hands.

      Dr Martin Miller is one therapist who particularly stands out in a positive sense. He was ahead of his time in that, rather than trying to analyze me in an attempt to “cure me” of my autism, he helped me deal with the issues that stemmed from my condition.

       A Social and Academic Catastrophe

      In elementary school, I was a social and academic catastrophe. I did not know how to interact with my classmates in a way they could understand or expect, which resulted in a lot of bullying and teasing. For example, I remember walking around in kindergarten, repeating the letter “B” over and over. Even though I thought it was an ugly sound, I was compelled to repeat it. Around that time I realized there was something different about me, as I was the only one I knew who went to a special clinic and saw a special doctor (the psychiatrist) every week.

      Instead of talking with my classmates, I had a repertoire of sounds and actions that I would make at them. I actually hoped I would get them to repeat these sounds and actions back at me. For me, that was a more predictable type of interaction than

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