Wsup, the names, Adayna(uh-day-nuh). I’m still here, occasionally…yes, even after all these years lol re-blogging posts and sometimes shared thoughts or stories🤷🏽♀️ don’t take it personal.
if you ever watched house the medical drama TV show, know that dr house mean and rude to everyone and very insensitive.
season 3 episode 4 about a severely autistic nonverbal boy with behavioral issues and no way to functionally communicate
of course have bad aspects. filmed in 2006. have bad ABA elements and bad PECS and drills and doctors not knowing how to handle nonverbal autistic boy w behavioral issues. definitely not down playing that. (and some other bad things in the subplot not related to the boy)
but dr house out of all people. is one that actually figured out how to communicate with him.
in this post i talk about how house’s interaction w the boy demonstrates how to connect with nonverbal nonspeaking autistics (despite the “he won’t understand”), presuming competence, the nuance of autism parents, and functional communication. i use the show to go beyond the plot and talk about wider (level 1 speaking) autism community issues.
so even if you not interested in the TV show House. still hope you can read.
“nobody knew how to speak ‘autistic.’ “
procedure need anesthesia mask thingie. and kid screaming and no one can put mask on him and make him stay, everyone trying to hold him down. house came in made insensitive remarks as always, but modeled to kid what to do. house put the anesthesia mask on him and breathed for bit for kid to see until he stopped screaming, then put it on kid, then put on himself, then on kid who successfully went under anesthesia.
which was so important. meant so much to me. because kid so unfamiliar don’t know what people are doing to him, probably no one explain, may or may not understand what happening. everyone so impatient and don’t know how to get on his level, and so many people restrain him so of course want fight back. but house was only one who considered what the kid needs what he is feeling. house mirrored it showed him what will happen what to do to kid in a way he will understand. he was even gentle. he smiled a little.
yes house used rude monkey metaphor to explain reasoning. but does that to every patient nonverbal autistic or not. so really, for house he didn’t treat the patient any differently.
afterwards. house even critiques dr cameron’s construction of “normal” in a somewhat intersectional, race conscious way. and don’t pity the child at all. resisting the idea of institutionalization.
See, skinny, socially-privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle. Everyone inside the circle is normal. Everyone outside the circle should be beaten, broken and reset, so they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized, or worse, pitied.
So, it's wrong to feel sorry for this little boy? Why would you feel sorry for someone who gets to opt out of the inane courteous formalities, which are utterly meaningless, insincere, and therefore, degrading? This kid doesn't have to pretend to be interested in your back pain, or your excretions, or your grandma's itchy place. Can you imagine how liberating it would be to live a life free of all the mind-numbing social niceties? I don't pity this kid.
I envy him.
when the medical team was suspecting that parents slip kid alcohol to calm him down (which turned out to not true), house breaks down why martyr parents becomes martyr parents:
How would you know that? The kid can't talk. Why do you think I took this case? He's not going to give away the ending. They quit their jobs for him. Yes, they are everything you'd want in a parent. Unfortunately, their kid is nothing you'd want. When a baby is born, it's perfect. Little fingers, little toes, plump, perfect, pink, and brimming with unbridled potential. Then it's downhill. Some hills steeper than others. Parents get off on their kids' accomplishments. ...They'll annoy you with trophy rooms and report cards. Hell, they'll even show you a purple cow and tell what a keen eye for color their kid has. But this kid, he doesn't smile, he doesn't hug them, he doesn't laugh. His parents get nothing but the right to brag that their kid picked orange juice out of a lineup. So you figure they slip the kid a mickey so they don't have to deal.
i think show parents in dynamic way too. lots of ableism, for sure. the bad coercive compliance drill kind of ABA tactics, for example.
but fully shows how hard it is to raise a “severely” nonverbal autistic kid with behavioral issues and no functional communication. as much as autistic community like to deny it, it is hard. it is a lot of work. and recognizing and acknowledging that it is a lot of work whether because of inherent autism as a disorder or because lack of societal support, acknowledging this fact alone doesn’t make a parent a martyr parent, an autism parent. i think this is where the (level 1 speaking late diagnosed) autistic community get wrong.
the parents are desperate. they do bad things. they don’t mean to do harm to the kid, they think they’re doing what’s right for their kid. but they still do bad things. and they care for the kid, they celebrate the kid’s achievements, yes sometimes misguided but they want to do good. there is nuance to this. the parents aren’t vile. they aren’t evil evil ableist want to force their kid to be neurotypical against all odds regardless of well-being. most autism parents are more nuanced like this. the level 1 speaking autism community need to listen, too.
and the show ended with. as the family is leaving, the autistic boy voluntarily goes towards dr house. and hands him his video game console (like a switch but not a switch idk), something that is a part of his routine that he melts down when interrupted when grabbed, that he probably very attached to. he gave it to house. and looked at house for a long time.
yes, the eye contact part can be seen as the show over valuing eye contact. but. the bigger impact is the fact that. the show showed the boy connected with house. whether it is thanking him, feel safe with him, we don’t know because the boy have no functional communication. but the boy formed connection with house, and expressed the connection in his own nonverbal way. no “thank you,” no hugs, no conventional way, but the boy’s communication in his own unique nonverbal autistic way. looking at his parents’ reactions, this is incredibly rare, probably even first time, and the parents are crying.
and house was able to diagnose the kid because he actually listened to all forms of communication. he didn’t dismiss the kid’s repeated drawings as meaningless. he didn’t dismiss the PECS image the kid picked in response to his question as meaningless and incompetent even though it was not the image/answer he was initially suspecting. and both things were crucial to the correct diagnosis. if house didn’t listen to them, the kid would have died. house listened to all forms of communication. he assumed competence. he assumed the kid was trying to communicate something, he didn’t chalk the kid’s behaviors as meaningless. despite the “he won’t understand you” “it would work” etc throughout the episode.
but. also want to say. these forms of communication, albeit need to be listened to, is still not functional communication. and functional communication is important and should strive towards for a reason.
another thing the (level 1 speaking) autistic community get wrong is saying nonverbal nonspeaking autistics can communicate same way/as effectively as speaking autistics. that only person to blame is evil evil ableist people not listening to their behaviors. if only they listen!
but more nuanced than that. many many ways to decipher the kid’s repeated drawing, for example. house got it right. he assumed that drawing has connection to the kid’s medical symptoms, and that it is a worm parasite. there can be million other interpretation even if you take kid seriously. i thought it was a ocean wave, for example. thought the kid like waves like beaches like ocean.
if the kid had functional communication—and by functional communication, i don’t mean speech, altho that can be a form of it, i include robust AAC—he could have communicated. in words (spoken/typed/written). what he was experiencing. what he was seeing in his eyes, the swiggly worms he was seeing. and the diagnosis would have arrived sinner. been put through less danger. and if house wasn’t there and another another was there and the doctor didn’t pay attention to the kid and dismissed the kid, the kid would have died because he didn’t have functional communication to tell people what he was experiencing.
it’s not as easy as “just listen!!” and chalking everyone who don’t exactly understand the nonspeaker as ableist.
those posts always go around that are like “if you’re on Tumblr and you’re over 25 blah blah blah” but honestly if you’re on Tumblr and you’re under 25, I don’t know how the fuck you found this place. like I came here when it was actually kind of cool and then just never left because all my stuff was here. what’s your excuse
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