Autism - a view from an outsider (My Experience With Aspergers Syndrome)

Member Name: TomMounsey

Product:	My Experience With Aspergers Syndrome
Date:	01/09/08 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: This differs from person to person

Disadvantages: Many disadvantages

I have watched both the film Rainman and have read the book - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and I would like to pass onto you what I have learnt about Autism while analysing these two sources and investigating myself! Hope you enjoy!

Autism is a disability that occurs once in every 110 people. Autistic people do not look any different; however the symptoms include sensitivity to certain sounds and loud noises, tastes, smells, touch or sensations caused by what they see. It is a lifelong disability that occurs four times more frequently in boys than girls. There is no cure and the cause of autism is unknown. Autism appears with varying degrees of severity - this is called the autistic spectrum, and many psychologists believe that we all can be placed within this spectrum.

One type of autistic person is a Savant, the word savant is French for 'clever idiot' and it is used to describe people who have special abilities. Christopher Boone in the novel: 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' and Raymond Babbit in the film: 'Rainman' are both Savants and therefore there are many similarities between the two characters.

Having watched Rainman, and read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, it is clear to me that the background of both Raymond Babbitt and Christopher Boone are very similar. They have similar abilities i.e. qualities that don't occur in your average human being, and act in similar ways; I found it extremely interesting finding out about Autism in general.

In terms of the characters themselves, again there are many similarities in the way they act, and what they do. However, it is apparent that the background of the two people is very different, and they have both been brought up in different ways. There is a contrast in their ages, where they come from and (as I have already alerted to) how they have been brought up, are very different and I think that this could possibly have an impact on the way they act. I believe that Raymond Babbitt is thirty seven years old (but the film is not totally conclusive) and Christopher Boone is definitely fifteen years old. The two people live on completely different sides of the globe with, Raymond living in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his brother, Charlie and Christopher living in the peaceful town of Swindon, in North Wiltshire.

Firstly, a main factor that distinguishes your average human being from someone with Autism is that in someone with the disorder, there may be marked impairment in the use of non-verbal communication, such as eye gaze, facial expression, body postures and gestures. Looking at Raymond Babbitt, he always fails to make eye contact with Charlie when him when speaking to him, notably when he apologizes to him. There are many occasions in the film where this happens and it is an obvious sign of an autistic person being in a different world to what they are saying. Also, there are many occasions in the film, where it is obvious that Raymond has not understood someone else's body language; a great example being where the prostitute is talking to him, and he is on a completely different wavelength to her; not understanding what impression the prostitute is trying to create. I think that this is another fascinating example of Raymond not relating to the person he is talking to in a civilized manner, but merely being in his own world, and on odd occasions, blurting out with a word which doesn't really fit into the conversation too well. Looking at the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, the Author, Mark Haddon has to portray Autism in a different way (because he is writing it in a book!). Like Raymond, Christopher cannot communicate particularly well, or express his feelings. Often, rather than using descriptive words in his book to describe his emotions, Christopher uses faces to demonstrate how he is feeling. For example, if Christopher was feeling upset, he would merely write, "...and because of this, I felt like...", and he would draw a sad face underneath the text to show. I think that this clearly shows that people with Autism do not know how to show their feelings as well as your average person, without any disorder would do. Going back to the film, Rainman, Raymond doesn't know when Charlie is getting cross with him; moreover, Raymond doesn't take in changes of tone in voice as any difference and he just thinks that Charlie is talking to him in the same manner. A great example in the film, where this theory is backed up, is where Raymond is obsessed that he must have boxer shorts from the shop, 'K-Mart'. It is quite amusing watching in the film, Charlie getting really annoyed that Raymond can't just act like a normal person, and Raymond being totally oblivious that the fact that Charlie is getting really frustrated. A final thing that you notice about the body language of Raymond is that he never smiles, and doesn't walk in a relaxed way. Despite the fact that you can see this in the film and the book doesn't mention it, you get the impression that Christopher would be very similar.

The second major factor that I am going to discuss regarding Autistic children, is, that they may have little or no interest in establishing friendships or relationships. By the time an Autistic person gets slightly older, they may have some interest in establishing mild friendships, but lack understanding of the conventions of social interaction. I believe that the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, portrays this factor of Autism very well. It is clear that Christopher has no real friends. His best friend is either his school helper, Siobhan or his pet rat, Toby; of whom he seems very close to! Often, because of their lack of sensitivity in what they say and how they say it, Autistic people frequently aren't offered much sympathy because the Autistic person may have unintentionally been rude, and offended someone. A good example of where this happens is in Rainman, where Raymond blurts out, "Are you taking any prescription medication?"! Due to this kind of what appears to be vulgar and obnoxious behaviour, people can't show empathy and realise why he has said it. Also in, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Christopher refers to members of his family - namely his parents - in a very formal way; calling his Mum, Mother and Dad, Father. This type of behaviour shows that maybe Autistic people aren't fully relaxed and everything has to be done very officially. Raymond plainly doesn't understand sex, kissing, secrets, dancing, and many, many more things. It is also obvious that Christopher does not grasp obvious things.

Next, I will look at the way Autistic people may not to seek to share enjoyment or interests and the way they demonstrate a lack of social interaction, preferring solitary activities. In both the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and the film, Rainman it is clear that both the Author and the Director are trying their best to portray the two Autistic characters in this manner by showing that they do things all by their self. Also, the two characters do some very unrealistic things that you wouldn't expect the average person to do when spending time on their own. In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Christopher does many things by himself. He seems much happier by himself than at any other time, doing various activities; he plays Minesweeper regularly on the computer. When he is bored, Christopher does maths equations in his head to apparently 'calm him down'! Looking at Raymond, he reads the phonebook out of enjoyment and almost relaxation, thrilling on the prospect of remembering all the numbers. Also, both the characters love to have everything the same every day; Christopher is obsessed by having as much red as he possibly can, and detests anything that contains the slightest amount of brown or yellow in it; even going to the extreme of having red food dye in his pocket, where he pours it over food that he is about to eat, if it contains any brown or yellow in it! Both Christopher and Raymond must watch certain television programmes at certain times and (especially Raymond) if they don't watch it, they will get very frustrated, and in Raymond's case, violent! Christopher prefers to be at home, and watch a David Attenborough documentary, whilst Raymond watches his favourite show, Wheel of Fortune on his walkman, which he takes with him everywhere! There was even an occasion in the film, Rainman, where because Charlie and Raymond weren't going to get back to the house (where Raymond's walkman was) in time for the start of Wheel of Fortune, they were forced to call in at a nearby house, where Raymond was permitted by the people living there to watch his programme; where he sat watching it avidly! In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Christopher likes to keep his a 'special' selection of food in his own sweet box, where if he needs anything to eat, he will take things from here. This shows again, that Christopher likes to have things that are his own, kept to himself, where no-one else will get anywhere near them, and he can go to them whenever he wants; eating them by himself rather than round a table with his Mother or Father. Going back to the film, Rainman, Raymond has his own diary; where he draws pictures whilst out in public at a restaurant or café, or even when he out walking in public! I think that again, Raymond and Christopher are very similar when it comes to preferring to do things by themselves and not liking social interaction. However, when watching the film, Rainman, it became clear to me that by the time the film had finished, Raymond had become much more confident and socially interactive, whilst in the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Christopher doesn't seem to progress socially from start to finish. On the other hand, this could purely be down to the fact that Raymond is over twenty years older than Christopher, and therefore it is more likely that he would progress better.

Another factor of Autism that distinguishes there sufferers from any other person without problems, is that they do not like being in any form of connection with anyone else, including members of their own family! To sum up, there may be lack of impairment in awareness of others and little or no concept of the needs of others or awareness of others' distress. In both the film and the book, it is very clear that Raymond and Christopher are very similar, if not exactly the same when it comes to this factor of Autism. At the start of the film and book respectively, the two characters hate anyone coming anywhere near them, let alone touching them! In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Christopher starts groaning in a loud and forceful way, if anyone hugs or kisses him; the only way in which he accepts any form of connection with members of his family is with his Father, when to basically show love and affection, they spread palms and touch each others hands. Throughout the whole film, this is the most tender that Christopher gets! In the film, Rainman, there is one particular occasion where Raymond is hugged quite forcefully by Charlie and he screams extraordinarily loudly, to a point where Charlie has to let go because the scream is too loud for his ears to cope with. Raymond has a knack however, of when someone comes anywhere near him, sharply moving his body out of the way to avoid being touched. Still looking at the film, every time that Raymond is touched unintentionally, he writes down everything about it in his diary, keeping a record of every time he has had the slightest physical connection with another person! However, at the end of the film, there is vast improvement in the way the Raymond connects with other people; even to an extreme where he ends up dancing for at least ten minutes with Charlie in his hotel room, with what appears to be no reservations whatsoever! Again, looking back at this part of Autism in detail, it is clear that through the film, Raymond is improving vastly and by the time the film has finished, Raymond doesn't appear to have many, if any problems about connecting with people physically, and understanding other people needs. However, the same can't be said for Christopher; he remains very much the same physically introverted person that he was at the start.

The next factor of Autism that I am going to look at is in my opinion the most obvious and the one which appears most frequently when you analyse both the film and the book. Both characters are not able to speak in what you might call a 'normal' manner (especially Raymond) and their tone is slightly strange. To encapsulate, spoken language, as well as verbal and non-verbal communication skills, may be delayed or impaired and there may be stereotype, repetitive or idiosyncratic use of language. In ways, in this aspect of Autism, Christopher and Raymond are slightly different in the way that they act. Whilst Christopher only has a real lack of understanding body language and the ability to communicate in a normal way, Raymond always seems to have this problem; where he says word in a weird tone and repeats it regularly. Looking at the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and at Christopher's character and personality, it is obvious that he cannot understand facial expressions or any form of emotion. There are countless occasions in the book where it is made clear that Christopher does not understand any form of emotion. As I have already alerted to, he draws faces to show how he is feeling because he can't express in words his emotions. When Christopher is writing, he doesn't use any adjectives or adverbs to describe his writing and his sentences are always long, containing a lot of words like 'and' and 'then' and having watched the film, Rainman, Raymond talks in exactly the same voice, with no breaks and no variation of tone, making what he says sound very uninteresting. Examples of things that Raymond always says in the same tone and regularly throughout the film are: "I don't know", "Uh oh" and "Yeah". Also, there are stages of the film where Raymond says something a lot of times and he continues saying it for a moderate period. There are again, myriad examples of when he does this. A good example is when he is talking to the prostitute and Charlie comes over to check what he is doing and Raymond continues to say, almost to himself whilst rocking on his chair, "Getting to know each other, just talking". Other paradigms include: "Counting cards", "I'm an excellent driver", "K Mart ... boxer shorts ..." and "very Twinkly". It also becomes apparent, that when Raymond has heard something, he has the tendency to keep repeating it. There are two great examples of where this happens in the film. Firstly, when he and Charlie are sitting in the car, listening to the radio and when Raymond hears a slogan to a certain station, he keeps repeating, "97fm Bang! The Return of rock and roll" and he persists with saying this until ten minutes into it, Charlie gets a bit frustrated and tells him blindly to shut up! Another occasion where Raymond repeats things that he has heard a few times is when he is in a car and he copies the noises that the engine is making, e.g. the car changing gear. Another part to this factor of Autism is, Raymond knows the introduction to the television programme, Wheel of Fortune off by heart; but this isn't altogether incredible because it is his favourite programme and he watches it every day! Looking back at Christopher, there are certain things that differ between him and Raymond, or things that Christopher does regularly, that Raymond does not do as frequently. It is very clear, that Christopher can't tell lies and it is totally against his nature to tell anything against the truth. An obvious case of where this happens is when, early in the book, Christopher is taken to the Police Station for questioning about the death of the dog, Wellington; he is totally honest in what he says and I imagine that what he says is very convincing because I would think that he would be able to keep a straight face through all of what he is saying i.e. his facial expressions and emotions would not differ. I have already previously referred to how Autistic people's facial express are very placid. Another factor, which is related to the truth and never telling lies, is that Christopher does not understand jokes and cannot tell jokes himself. I imagine that for his Mother and Father it must be very frustrating bringing Christopher up, based on this factor alone because generally in every day life, parents will tell tiny jokes to their children and expect them to automatically take it as a joke but for Christopher's parents they need to be very careful that something they perceive to be a total joke, will be taken the wrong way be Christopher. Finally, it is clear that both Christopher and Raymond answers questions that people ask them, very directly i.e. they answer yes or no and they don't expand on their answers by using descriptive language, so when they talk their sentences don't seem to join up normally and they end up becoming very boring.

A minor point, which I have just already slightly alerted to, but it counts a separate factor of Autism, is the fact that the speech of someone Autistic may be abnormal in pitch, intonation, rate, rhythm or stress. Looking at the film, Rainman, Raymond always speaks in a dull tone, sounding rather bored and like a robot. He shows no emotional feeling or sentiment in his voice. I can't analyse this factor of Autism for Christopher Boone because you don't get to hear how he would actually say it because it is coming out of a book rather than a film, but I would definitely make a prediction that it would be very similar to Raymond.

Another major factor of Autism is that with Autistic people, there may be repetitive use of words or phrases, regardless of meaning. Furthermore language comprehension may be delayed, with an inability to understand humour or non-literal aspects of speech such as irony or implied meaning. Looking at both the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and the film, Rainman, it is quite amusing investigating this interesting factor of Autism and seeing at what lengths Autistic people are forced to go because of their lack of common sense! In terms of the repetitive side of Autism, I have found examples in the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, where Christopher repeats particular language over and over again. A good paradigm of when this happened would be when he is asked by someone what his Mothers address is and persists with repeating this, saying the full address every time, including the postcode! This factor of Autism slightly coincides with the factor I discussed two paragraphs previously, about repetitive or idiosyncratic use of language. Moreover, when Christopher writes in his book, about who he is talking about, he describes every little detail about the person, from what their nose looks like, to what colour socks they're wearing (especially if it is someone he doesn't know or hasn't seen before! Not only does he do this, Christopher perseveres with talking about the person like this; not calling them by their name, or (if he doesn't know their name) the woman or the man! Christopher and Raymond are very similar, throughout the whole film, in the way that they interpret jokes or 'white lies' and common sense in general! In the film, Rainman, it is quite amusing when Raymond is walking across a road (having been to the shops) with a pile of bags in his arms, using the aid of a pedestrian crossing, to get him across safely. Just before he gets to end of the road and onto the footpath, the sign changes to 'Don't Walk, and being Autistic, Raymond takes it seriously and stops in the middle of the road, whilst the lights for the cars to go turn green. For any normal person, common sense would have prevailed and they would have gone across. Once again there is a similarity between Christopher and Raymond when it comes to understanding metaphors or sarcasm. There are innumerable occasions in both the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and the film, Rainman, where it is made clear that both of the characters cannot understand any form of sarcasm or any metaphors. Both Christopher and Raymond do not like these two aspects of general speech because it is not real or true and Autistic people much prefer things to be told as they actually are. Christopher's language comprehension in particular is much delayed. An example of this is, when writing the book, he starts every speech sentence with either I said, he said or she said, without ever using variations of verbs, exciting adverbs or descriptive adjectives! Also, Autistic people can't make decisions easily, so they end up saying the same answer that they said to the previous question. A good example is, when Raymond is considering how much something cost and he ended up saying the same answer to the previous question (also a money question).

Next, I am going to look at the way that in Autistic people; there may be unusual preoccupations or stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest, abnormal wither in intensity or focus. Both Raymond and Christopher have special abilities in one way or the other. What you would say was Christopher's special ability would be the fact that he knows all the prime numbers, up to a massive amount, whilst Raymond knows all the baseball players who have played on first base for a hundred years!

I find it interesting, that the Director of the film and Author of the book have to express autism in different ways; I have already alerted to the fact that the Director of Rainman, gives the impression that Raymond is often in a world of his own and the Director does well in making Rainman's character very ordered i.e. he does the same things with the same movements very regularly. I think that the author of the book, Mark Haddon, has a trickier job of portraying

Summary: Find out what it is really like to have Aspergers Syndrome