Oliver Sacks meets Jessica Park (a young artist with autism)— an encounter that offers profound insights into the nature of this neurological condition and its impact on human relationships. With Jessica’s parents, Dr. Sacks investigates past efforts to define and understand autism, providing a penetrating view into how we might re-see autism today. Dr. Sacks also explores the biological basis of autism with Dr. Eric Courchesne, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego. This is part four of a six-part documentary film series The Mind Traveller that was originally aired on the BBC in 1996. (50 minutes)
Andrew Fenton completed his PhD in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary, Alberta. His dissertation critically discusses the evidence of the existence of epistemic activities among chimpanzees and bonobos and problematizes the anthropocentricity of much contemporary analytic epistemology. Dr. Fenton's dissertation research necessitated an exploration of some of the central issues surrounding the use of psychological vocabulary to describe some of the proximate causes of some nonhuman animal behaviour. He has, consequently, developed an interest in models of nonhuman animal cognition and the perceived relationship between nonhuman and human cognition assumed in studies whose long-term goal concerns the treatment of various psychological pathologies or neurodegenerative diseases in humans. Dr. Fenton's other research interests include some of the problems of personal identity that arise, or are perceived to arise, from current work in neuroscience or its medical applications; the use of psychological or intentional vocabulary in describing the significance of certain neuroimages that picture neural activity; and what non-Western religious traditions like Buddhism can contribute to discussions of the moral status of neurocognitive enhancement technologies. Dr. Fenton is a co-author of "Autism, Neuodiversity, and Equality Beyond the 'Normal'" (Nov.2007, JEMH) and "Autism, Empathy and Questions of Moral Capacity" (in review). He is a Postdoctoral Fellow and member of the Novel Tech Ethics research team at Dalhousie University and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at Dal.
Clinician/Researcher Panelist
Shannon Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Dalhousie University. Her research examines the perceptual and cognitive abilities of individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Johnson completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Victoria and her clinical internship at the Medical University of South Carolina. She then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience at Indiana University, where she focused on research in both autism spectrum and neurodegenerative disorders. She is also cross-appointed in the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and is a Scientific Staff member of the IWK Health Centre.
Community Representative Panelist
Michael Price has been Program Director with the Provincial Autism Centre since 2004. Michael worked for many years in residential services working with individuals with a variety of special needs. After managing a residential program in Vancouver for several years, Michael returned to Nova Scotia and worked to help transition residents of the Halifax County Rehabilitation Centre to community placements. He supported the opening of two new Small Option Homes, one for adults with Autism, and another new home for children with Autism. Having worked with many adults with ASD and with having an adult sibling with ASD, Michael brings a unique perspective to the autism centre, as is reflected in the unique programming opportunities they offer.
Movie Reviews and Special Features
Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that persons carrying the diagnosis present a range of non-normal behaviours with varying degrees of consequent functionality across several different dimensions. What are some of the identifying features of autistic persons as explained by Oliver Sacks in this movie from 1996? What more do we know about this from autism research today? What are some of the different models used to explain autism? What are the symptoms used to diagnose autism? How are the criteria for diagnosis determined? Who usually is charged with diagnosing autism?
Is there such a thing as an “autistic personality”?
For many years autistic persons have been treated as if they have within them a “normal” person that wants to be released. What evidence do we see in this film for and against taking up this sort of attitude towards autistic persons? In what ways could this attitude towards “autistic persons” be experienced as confining and misleading?
We see in Jessie Park an example of those “10% of autistic persons” described by Oliver Sacks as “uniquely gifted”. Most of the movies featuring autistic persons available in our popular culture tend to feature only this subset of autistic persons. Why is this?
In times past persons with intellectual or physical abnormalities were sometimes treated as exotic creatures and put on display. What’s wrong with this? How far have we come in re-structuring our society to be more tolerant and respectful of persons who present as different in the relevant ways? What are remaining areas for us to improve in this regard? What does it mean to treat another person as an object of curiosity? Is there any evidence that this sort of attitude is taken towards Jessie Park?
Do you feel that autistic persons are represented with fairness and respect in this movie?
Is Jessie Park’s need for order and her anxiety in the face of chaos or a lack of control in any way different from how the rest of us (otherwise described as “neurotypical”) want and need control and order in our lives? What are structural ways to work to better accommodate a sensitivity to these sorts of needs of autistic persons in our society?
Oliver Sacks describes autistic persons as being “mind-blind”, meaning that they are unaware of others’ perspectives of the world, along with a lack of awareness that their own understanding of the world is perspectival. What evidence is there for this model of autism? Is there any evidence for this model to make sense of the behaviour of the autistic persons featured in this film?
The narrator asks us to consider: “Who is Jessie? How much is she the product of autism? How much is she the product of her parents?”….Autism is a neurological condition with various models of explanation. This movie asks us to consider what effect parenting has on children, and to what degree Jessie Park is who she is because of her parents and their parenting style. To what degree do parents determine and to what extent should parents try to determine the “nature” of their children, autistic or not? What are some of the implicit attitudes prevalent in our culture that work to over-rate the influence of parents for children who present as developmentally delayed? ….What are the ways we can work to promote fair as opposed to simplistic “explanations” of child behaviours, including those of autistic children? Is this any different for making sense of the determinants of the behaviour of autistic adults?
Oliver Sacks asks us to consider what are some of the different systems of order in our lives? Which ones are public? Which ones are private? What do these systems accomplish for us in terms of our emotional well-being and abilities to make the world, as Dr. Sacks asks, “intelligible, communicable, bearable” …? What place does ritual have in Jesse’s life as an autistic person? What are some of the rituals in your own life which work to provide you with a sense of comfort or well-being?
Jessie’s mother describes a time when Jesse was not so communicative as she appears in this movie. Clara Park further relates that she sometimes encouraged Jessie’s “obsessions” as a way to get her interested to talk more. Clara confessed that she was not always confident this was the best approach. What are ways to encourage autistic persons to be more sociable and to communicate? Is this an important goal for those relating to autistic persons as educators?
“Obsessions” speak to certain needs of an individual, and they sometimes are grounds for conflict with others’ hopes and expectations of that individual. How can anyone decide which obsessions are healthy and which ones aren’t? How do parents of autistic children sort this out? What are ways to help to redirect or to diminish “obsessions” that are not healthy? What are ways to avoid or redirect unreasonable expectations for change from persons with obsessions? What does Warren have to say on this subject in the film?
How we talk about one another is all important for defining our relations one to another. For example, what is the difference between labelling some of Jessie Parks” repetitive behaviours as “obsessions” as opposed to “enthusiasms”? What are the different ways in which people in this movie talk about Jessie’s behaviours and how Jessie describes her own behaviours?
