An Idiot Savant Plays the Violin

My son has been doing Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy for awhile now, and we've already begun to see an improvement. ABA therapy is a treatment for autism- and other developmental delays- that operates on the principle that you can train a person to develop an instinct they don't have already. This makes a lot of common sense. While I try to avoid the dog analogy, we can all agree that sitting still and waiting for food is not the instinct canines were born with. It becomes their instinct after a long series of rewards makes them eschew their natural instincts in favor of those more convenient for us. ABA is just applying that same principle to people.

The new thinking about my son's condition goes something like this. We are all born with a set of instincts written into our brains- we all naturally begin to walk, point to objects, mimic expressions, talk, reason, learn, mate, etc. These instincts are inborn. We know them like spiders know to build webs or hawks learn to dive for mice from hundreds of feet in the air. The instincts we come with are astounding in their complexity and range. Almost all of us have instincts that are especially developed- instincts that are more specific and distinct. Some people are just born with a sense of balance, others have brains that are geared towards language, some of us can see farther, run faster, or handle really tiny things with our fingers,  etc. Those special instincts we have that are naturally more pronounced in us than our peers are what we call talent. As everyone knows, almost everyone has one. Often, it just isn't the one we want.

When we're lucky, we have the good fortune to channel those talents into activities that bear fruit. The kid who can think fast, see things moving in a weird, specific way could be a ball player- or maybe a photographer. The little boy who just has that gift for language becomes a translator, or a computer programmer. The talents we have aren't usually specific, they can usually be bent towards a number of different activities. The ability to snap a photograph at exactly the right instant or spot a splitfinger fastball headed towards the plate are actually pretty closely related. The talent might be more or less the same, the difference is where it gets channeled. The quick-eyed kid who's thoughtful, introverted and intellectual isn't going to gravitate to baseball. Likewise the athletic, extroverted, spontaneous kid is going to be bored by photography. They have the same basic set of talents, of overdeveloped instincts, they just feel rewarded by them in different ways.

That's why some people, no matter how hard they try, will never be great pianists if they don't have that natural, inborn talent to hear sounds and move their fingers in coordination with them. At the same time,  that talent will atrophy if it is not used. The brain of a kid that has that talent and never uses it will retrain itself to do things that are more useful to it. No great athlete or scientist was born that way. Michael Jordan became Michael Jordan because he shot millions of baskets over and over. He augmented and optimized that inborn talent to become the greatest basketball player on Earth. If he hadn't practiced, he may very well be able to make his way around the court better than a lot of people- but he would not be Air Jordan. Everything we are good at- or bad at- is the result of an interplay between different sets of talents and experiences we have that optimize or thwart those talents.

In the case of autism, everything is all turned around. Those instincts that we have to look people in the eye, to wonder what someone else must be thinking, our curiosity about the world around us- all that is inborn. That is, it is inborn if you are not autistic. My son has only some of those intincts. To him, those basic, taken for granted instincts are not instincts at all- but talents. to the autistic person, human interaction is as mystifying as watching someone knit a blanket if you can't sew- or seeing a ballplayer run the bases and dodge the shortstop if you are as athletic as say....me. It is a baffling mix of unintelligible rules and thoughts. For many autistic people those instincts that seem like talents to them are impossible to learn. No matter how hard they try, they will never develop them. Most cases are not this severe, but many are.

In my son's case, there is s kernel of social instinct. He relates to objects that interest him, he has some empathy, and he is voraciously curious about the limited range of things he finds interesting. He may never be a social marvel, but he can learn those things we take for granted if he practices. That is what ABA is. It is the grueling, tedious, onerous work of harnessing an instinct to build a talent. ABA involves a therapist sitting in front of my son, and giving him something he finds rewarding every time he does something social. When he looks his therapist in the eye, when he points to something the therapist is holding, when he does something the therapist asks- he gets rewarded. The reward will vary with each kid. Right now, my son thinks marshmallows are manna. So, he does tricks for marshmallows. If it sounds like training a dog, that is because it is. It is the exact same principle at work.

He does this for 20 hours a week, every week. About a third of his life is spent practicing the things most kids do by instinct- pointing to things, copying an expression, etc. He does it over and over. He enjoys it about as much as any kid enjoys practicing anything. It's tedious. It's boring. It's depressingly difficult and it seems almost impossible. For my son, these natural interactions come as naturally to him as playing violin does to other two year olds. Listening to him practice is like listening to somebody learn the violin.

When he gets frustrated he lets out these discordant, blood curdling, high-pitched screams. They grate like a bad note on a violin or nails across a chalkboard, and if the windows weren't thicker they'd crack. After an hour he breaks down completely and flails in his chair until he's exhausted. He reacts about the way any two year old would act if you tried to get them to practice violin for twenty hours a week. In my son's case, not practicing every day for hours a day is not an option. For him to develop that tiny seed of social talent to the point that he can function like a normal person will require this much work, and, soon, he'll need to do even more to keep progressing. It is torture to watch. No parent can do this without help. He has multiple therapists because even a professional can only take a few hours of this at a time. To try it with your own child would be heart breaking and pointless. I know- I tried.

We're lucky. For his 20 hours of therapy, someone needs to be at home so his therapists can work with him. We are in a position where I can stay home. If we weren't I don't know what would happen. Even though his Early Intervention therapy is free of cost by law, for it to work properly it requires having a parent or caretaker who can more or less make it their job. If I weren't married, if i didn't have help, I don't know what would happen to my son. When I get discouraged I think of that. It could always be worse. No matter how bad it is, it could always be worse.

He is making progress. The other day he smiled at me. It was a micheivous, coprophagous grin that said "I can do this you know. I just don't." When he smiled at me like that, he was teasing me. That kind of interaction, that playfulness, shouldn't be happening in an autistic boy. It is happening in my son. He has a personality. It is an autistic personality- deadpan, wry, and a little cocky. When he smiled at me like that, I saw for a split second that my son could do the things he shouldn't be able to do by definition. He's able to do them because he works hard- really, really God damned hard. That smile was my little boy gave me was nothing short of miraculous. What I saw that afternoon was like seeing a two year old play "Flight of the Bumblebees" on a violin, and it was my son that pulled that off. He is amazing. He has done in his short little life more than some people ever do, and that was just a smile- and that is only the beginning.

One of the things that's funny about autism is that, while autistic people are born without all those social instincts we think of as essential, they are often born with astounding talents. The absent-minded professor, the awkward genius, and the idiot savant are all stereotypical autistic people. Many autistic people are like that. Many more are not. Many more have talents that don't get usefully channeled, which is tragic. Some are never able to communicate their interests, some are written off, and no one bothers to find out what those interests are. If you find that interest, the reward that turns the light on, that autistic kid will work harder to develop those talents better and faster than any human being on Earth. That is amazing, and I think that as we learn more about the condition and how to connect with people who have it, that story will become more and more common. The miracle of things like ABA is that it builds on its victories. Every Temple Grandin makes it possible for four more, and that is beautiful.

The thing is- even if my son never finds some astonishing talent, even if he develops an average intellect, or becomes just okay at something- he is still, in my view, a prodigy. I have seen him work for hours upon hours. I have seen him scream and suffer and give up, only to be physically forced to keep going. He has worked harder than anyone I have ever seen, and he learned how to play big league ball. He pulled off a huge feat when he smiled at me that day- it was Jackie Robinson stealing home in the disguise of a curled lip, knowing smile.

As sublime as moments like that are, they come at a cost. When he shrieks at the top of his lungs all I can think of is how desperately I want to get out of that room so I don't have to hear it anymore and I won't have to see every vein in his neck throb while he yells. The other day, while he was doing his ABA therapy, he got upset with the therapist for speaking too loudly. He screamed and yelled, and I thought to myself: "this is a nightmare to listen to." Then it occurred to me that to him, that's what every loud voice, every broken routine felt like to him. Watching him do ABA, I realize how agonizing life must be for him, because I hear the world as he does all the time when he screams. His whole life feels like I do when he screams. His whole life!

Despite that, my son manages to find things to soothe him. He has corners where he takes refuge, but most importantly, he never holds a grudge against the rest of the world, which, as far as he knows, is always screaming bloody murder. His autism makes the world an extremely annoying, grating place to live in. Even then, he finds a way to smirk at me like a wise-ass. I have never seen someone suffer so much and still be willing to work so hard with no hard feelings. That is a gift given to him that most of us would love to have, and are lucky when we even get to see it. I do get to see it, every day. It's great, but it's also horrible- it depends on the day which it feels like more.