by John Donvan
In either case, it was Kanner’s use of the term autistic—not Asperger’s, which was little known outside the German-speaking world—that set off the complex chain of events that comprise the story of autism as it was lived and understood by thousands of families for decades to come. That is the story we tell.
In addition, as will become clear in chapters 31 and 32, our assessment of Asperger’s work and character differs from Silberman’s in significant ways.
CHAPTER 4: WILD CHILDREN AND HOLY FOOLS
“It was there before”: Leo Kanner, speech given at the annual National Society for Autism Meeting, Washington, DC, July 17, 1969. A transcription is available from the American Psychiatric Association.
Around 1910, Bleuler: Uta Frith, ed., Autism and Asperger Syndrome (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 38.
Half a millennium ago: Natalia Challis and Horace W. Dewey, The Blessed Fools of Old Russia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan; Franz Steiner Verlag, 1974), 1–11.
a pair of Russian-speaking scholars: Natalia Challis and Horace W. Dewey, “Basil the Blessed. Holy Fool of Moscow,” Russian History 14, no. 1 (1987): 47–59.
Hugh Blair of Borgue: Rab Houston and Uta Frith, Autism in History: The Case of Hugh Blair of Borgue (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
“The available evidence”: Ibid., 149.
The so-called Wild Boy: Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, The Wild Boy of Aveyron, trans. George and Muriel Humphrey (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962).
“Seeing that my efforts”: Ibid.
“to respect humanity in every form”: Samuel Gridley Howe, The Servant of Humanity (Boston: Dana Estes & Co., 1909), 204.
“its moral character”: Ibid., 204.
The result of Howe’s outrage: Samuel G. Howe, Report Made to the Legislature of Massachusetts upon Idiocy (Boston, 1848), 8–17, 51–53.
“Science has not yet”: Ibid., 7.
the Idiot’s Cage: Catherine Slater, “Idiots, Imbeciles and Intellectual Impairment,” Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability, http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/the-history-of-learning-disability/idiots-imbeciles-and-intellectual-impairment/.
CHAPTER 5: DOUBLY LOVED AND PROTECTED
In the late summer of 1939: Except where otherwise specified, the details of Donald’s life during the years 1939–1945 are from Leo Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” Nervous Child 2 (1943), and Leo Kanner, “Follow-up Study of Eleven Autistic Children Originally Reported in 1943,” Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 1, no. 2 (1971).
publication dates of Time magazine: Author interview with Donald and Oliver Triplett.
an obsession with calendars: Author interview with James Rushing.
It was not an institution: Authors’ visit to Lewis home; interview with Oliver Triplett.
“Mr. & Mrs. Lewis are”: Letter from Donald Triplett’s grandfather, William McCravey, June 22, 1943, provided to the authors by Oliver Triplett.
CHAPTER 6: SOME KIND OF GENIUS
When Donald was fourteen: In 2005, a UPI journalist named Don Olmsted, later a founder of the website AgeofAutism.com, theorized that mercury was the cause of Donald’s autism. He built his case partly on the fact that Donald seemed to have improved after doctors at the Campbell Clinic gave him a compound known as “gold salts,” which was then a standard treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. Olmsted proposed that the gold salts had accelerated the removal of mercury from Donald’s body. In a book arguing that autistic behaviors in a child may often be the result of an environment contaminated by mercury, Olmsted elaborated on how mercury might have reached Donald’s developing brain. The lumber used in the construction of the Triplett home, he suggested, might have been treated with a mercury-based fungicide, which might in turn have leached into the air inside the house, where Mary Triplett would have inhaled it while pregnant with Donald.
In his initial reporting, Olmsted went so far as to suggest gold salts had cured Donald’s autism. He quoted Donald’s brother, Oliver Triplett, saying that Donald’s “proclivity to excitability and extreme nervousness had all but cleared up.” He also quoted a doctor—clearly one who had not examined Donald—who said, “It sounds like he moved right off the spectrum.”
The theory has several weaknesses, most notably the lack of any evidence that the wood in the walls of the Triplett home contained mercury, or that Mary Triplett was ever exposed to toxic levels of mercury. Also, as is clear to anyone who has ever met Donald, he continues to this day to be a person with autism. He did not “move off the spectrum.” Moreover, a 1956 write-up on Donald by Kanner’s deputy, Leon Eisenberg (“The Autistic Child in Adolescence,” American Journal of Psychiatry 112, 8 [Feb. 1956]: 607–12), reported that the moderation of his autistic behaviors had started before he became sick. True, Eisenberg noted that Donald’s improvement had apparently continued during the illness and afterward, when it even accelerated, but this perception could easily have been the natural result of watching a boy in terrible pain returning to himself as the pain receded.
In a 2007 interview, his brother Oliver told us that neither of Donald’s parents traced the lessening of his “nervousness” to the gold salts he was given at Campbell. Rather, according to Oliver, his mother believed that it was the high fevers Donald experienced that had improved his behavior. While her hunch is just as speculative as Olmsted’s gold salts theory, it dovetails intriguingly with recent research indicating that high fevers have a moderating effect on certain autistic behaviors. See, for example, Curran et al., “Behaviors Associated with Fever in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Pediatrics 120, no. 6 (December 1, 2007): e1386–e1392.
about the bricks: Author interview with Oliver and Donald Triplett.
They simply let him be: Author interviews with Janelle Brown, John Rushing, and Celeste Graham.
and piano recitals: Mary Triplett’s activities were often noted in the Scott County Times, the local newspaper, published in Forest, Mississippi, from 1950 to 1951.
Fortunately for Donald: Janelle Brown interview.
blend in themselves: Celeste Graham interview.
Donald was a numbers whiz: Author interview with Buddy Lovett.
then a senior, approached her: Janelle Brown interview.
Donald continued doing this: Buddy Lovett interview.
One classmate, John: John Rushing interview.
This was a landmark: Scott County History Book Committee, History of Scott County, Missouri: History & Families (Paducah, KY: Turner, 2003).
“Billy Bob Hefferfield”: Author interviews with Donald and Oliver Triplett.
When he graduated: Donald Triplett shared his Forest High School yearbooks with the authors.
CHAPTER 7: THE REFRIGERATOR MOTHER
“You have a major problem”: This and other details about Rita Tepper’s experience from an author interview with Tepper.
“diaper-aged schizoids”: “Medicine: Frosted Children,” Time, April 26, 1948.
“kept neatly in a refrigerator”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 8: PRISONER 15209
He was called Dr. Bruno Bettelheim: Except where otherwise specified, details of Bruno Bettelheim’s life are from Richard Pollak, The Creation of Doctor B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), and Bruno Bettelheim, “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38, no. 4 (1943): 417–52.
Bettelheim, upon his release: Theron Raines, Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno Bettelheim (New York: Knopf, 2002), 124.
“From these children”: Grant application to Ford Foundation submitted by the Shankman Orthogenic School of the University of Chicago and Bruno Bettelheim, August 9, 1955, 4, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY. The files include Bruno Bettelheim’s proposals and responses to the Ford Foundation.
“From what we know”: Bruno Bettelheim, The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birt
h of the Self (Glencoe, NY: Free Press, 1976), 60.
Critics were awed: Robert Coles, “A Hero of Our Time,” New Republic, March 4, 1967.
“as much a philosophical”: Eliot Fremont-Smith, “Children Without an I,” New York Times Book Review, March 10, 1967.
“She studied it with intense”: Bettelheim, Empty Fortress, 163.
“completely ignored”: Bruno Bettelheim, “Joey, a Mechanical Boy,” Scientific American, March 1959, 131.
“This is essentially the same”: Bettelheim, Empty Fortress, 67.
CHAPTER 9: KANNER’S FAULT
In 1949, Leo Kanner: Leo Kanner, “Problems of Nosology and Psychodynamics in Early Infantile Autism,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 19, no. 3 (1949): 416–26.
“For here we seem”: Leo Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” Nervous Child 2 (1943): 250.
“almost word-for-word”: Letter from Louise Despert to Leo Kanner, July 12, 1942, American Psychiatric Association Archives, Arlington, Virginia.
“When Kanner coined”: Leon Eisenberg, “The Past 50 Years of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Personal Memoir,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 40, no. 7 (July 2001): 743–48.
“the state of affairs changed abruptly”: Leo Kanner, speech given as recipient of the Stanley R. Dean Research Award by the American Psychiatric Association in New York on May 4, 1965. Available at http://neurodiversity.com/library_kanner_1965.pdf.
Some fifty-two articles: Leo Kanner, “Infantile Autism and the Schizophrenias,” Behavioral Science 4 (1965): 412–20.
“I need not mention”: Leo Kanner, speech given at the annual National Society for Autism Meeting, Washington, DC, July 17, 1969. A transcription is available from the American Psychiatric Association.
moment as “thrilling”: Author interview with Ruth Sullivan.
a guest on Dick Cavett’s show: Dick Cavett interview with Bruno Bettelheim, The Dick Cavett Show, ABC, original airdate June 2, 1971.
CHAPTER 10: BITING HER TONGUE
It was winter 1964: The story of Audrey and Melissa Flack, and the events that took place at Lenox Hill Hospital, were told in author interviews with Audrey Flack.
The term used by the team was psychogenic factors: Unless otherwise noted, all information about this study is from Katharine F. Woodward, Norma Jaffe, and Dorothy Brown, “Psychiatric Program for Very Young Retarded Children,” American Journal of Diseases for Children 108 (1964): 221–29.
“any organic basis”: Ibid.
mandatory “casework treatment”: Ibid.
In 1978, her painting of Anwar: “Anwar Sadat, Man of the Year,” Time, January 2, 1978.
“Doctor, do you think”: Audrey Flack, Audrey Flack, Art and Other Miracles, unpublished manuscript shared with the authors by Audrey Flack.
“renowned figure in”: James Warren, “Another Opinion: Chicago Adds to Doubts Raised About Bettelheim’s Methods, Personality,” Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1991; Shari Roan, “A Quiet Advocate for the Child: Psychology: The Late Bruno Bettelheim Rewrote the Code of Treatment for Emotionally Disturbed Children,” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1990.
“The point of view”: Daniel Goleman, “Bruno Bettelheim Dies at 86—Psychoanalyst of Vast Impact,” New York Times, March 14, 1990.
CHAPTER 11: MOTHERS-IN-ARMS
Ruth Sullivan had no patience: Author interview with Ruth Sullivan.
“He will always be a little odd”: Ibid.
“ready for school”: John Machacek, “No School for Bright Boy Suffering from Autism,” Knickerbocker News, February 22, 1966.
she would write up a set of guidelines: Ruth Sullivan, “Parents As Trainers of Legislators, Other Parents, and Researchers,” in The Effects of Autism on the Family, ed. Eric Schopler and Gary Mesibov (New York: Plenum Press, 1984).
“poignant beauty”: Ibid., 235.
“one of the most sensitive”: Ibid.
“reading reports, budgets, studies”: Ibid., 237.
families in Suffolk County: In the United States, the first schools parents started on their own were: the May Institute, originally called the Parents’ School for Atypical Children, started by Jacques and Marie May in 1955 on Cape Cod; the Developmental Disabilities Institute, originally called the Suffolk Center for Emotionally Disturbed Children, in Suffolk County, Massachusetts; and the Center for Developmental Disabilities, originally called the Nassau Center for Emotionally Disturbed Children, in Woodbury, New York. See http://198.173.67.27/dramatic_progress_in_the_past.htm.
CHAPTER 12: THE AGITATOR
he was famously happy: Author interview with Jon Panghorn.
Bernie’s own parents were: This and other details of Bernard Rimland’s life are from an author interview with Gloria Rimland, his wife, and Stephen Edelson.
“a perfectly normal-looking infant”: Autism: Present Challenges, Future Needs—Why the Increased Rates? Hearing Before the House Committee on Government Reform, 106th Congress, statement by Bernard Rimland, PhD, Autism Research Institute, 2000.
“Only Churchill comes to mind”: Letter from Bernard Rimland, PhD, to Leo Kanner, MD, c. 1960, American Psychiatric Association Archives.
encouraged Rimland to keep going: Letter from Bernard Rimland, PhD, to Leo Kanner, MD, c. 1960, American Psychiatric Association Archives.
Rimland’s first letter to Bettelheim: Letter from Bernard Rimland to Bruno Bettelheim, March 22, 1965, Bettelheim papers, University of Chicago.
“I…shall give you no help”: Letter from Bruno Bettelheim to Bernard Rimland, March 25, 1965, Bettelheim papers, University of Chicago.
“any reprints, reports or references”: Letter from Bernard Rimland to Bruno Bettelheim, April 5, 1966, Bettelheim papers, University of Chicago.
“You see, feelings are”: Letter from Bruno Bettelheim to Bernard Rimland, March 25, 1965, Bettelheim papers, University of Chicago.
“father of autism”: Leo Kanner, foreword in Bernard Rimland, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Educational Division, Meredith Publishing, 1964), 21.
parents were actually stealing: Edelson interview.
a “diagnostic checklist”: Rimland, Infantile Autism, 278.
calling his Baltimore clinic: Leo Kanner, “The Specificity of Early Infantile Autism,” Acta Paedopsychiatrica 25 (1958): 108–13.
“one of the nation’s leading authorities”: William G. Patrick, “Bizarre Withdrawal Symptoms Mark Infantile Autism Cases,” Salt Lake City Tribune, March 17, 1967.
“a recognized authority”: “Autism Film Screened Tonight,” Oxnard Press Courier, May 8, 1969.
“two major schools of thought”: Ellen Hoffman, Washington Post, July 1969.
Robert Crean was a playwright: Robert J. Crean papers, 1947–1971, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0095an.
The episode was called “Conall”: TV listings, Herald Statesman, February 6, 1965.
The program aired: Author interview with Christopher Crean. Crean provided the authors a copy of the original show his father produced in 1965, “Directions ’65: ‘Conall.’ ”
referring to the “Rimland book”: Author interview with Ruth Sullivan.
The National Society for Autistic Children: Interviews with Ruth Sullivan and Ellen Rampell, daughter of Herbert and Rosalyn Kahn; Frank Warren, “The Role of the National Society in Working with Families,” in The Effects of Autism on the Family, ed. Eric Schopler and Gary Mesibov (New York: Plenum Press, 1984).
CHAPTER 13: HOME ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON
“Blind Child Slow Learner”: This and other recollections about Frankie Barton are from an author interview with Alice and George Barton.
Wouldn’t that be a relief?: Author interview with Lorenzo Dall’ Armi, superintendent of the Sa
nta Barbara school system.
election was held to replace her: Mooza V. P. Grant, “The President Reports,” National Society for Autistic Children, Inc., Newsletter, Summer 1968.
legal action to prevent Grant: Author interview with Ruth Sullivan.
lost his trust in psychiatry: The story of the psychiatry crisis is well told in Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry: From the Asylum to the Age of Prozac (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
established the Santa Barbara: Author interview with Mary Ellen Nava.
Then Dougie was diagnosed with autism: This and other recollections of life in the Gibson household are from an author interview with Junie Gibson.
“I have done a terrible thing”: “Retarded Son Is Dead: Father Calls Police to Say He Shot Boy,” Santa Barbara Press, January 6, 1971.
“schizophrenic reaction, childhood type”: Ibid.
a letter to the editor appeared: Mary Ellen Nava, “Readers Comments,” Santa Barbara Press, January 9, 1971.
“mercy killing”: Mary Ellen Nava interview.
At the trial, a sympathetic psychiatrist: The People of the State of California, Plaintiff, v. Alexander Gibson, Defendant, Original Reporter’s Transcript of Grand Jury Proceedings, January 12, 1971, Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Santa Barbara.