A Little Context For Christopher

Christopher’s Early Life

This play is set in Swindon, England in 2012. If Christopher is 15 in 2012, that puts his birth in 1997.

His parents may have started noticing differences in Christopher’s development around his 2nd or 3rd birthday. He may have cried more than other children. It’s likely he had more trouble sleeping and eating than his same-aged peers. He may have progressed through his developmental milestones in a different sequence or timing than other children around him. However, I suspect that of most concern to his parents were his meltdowns and shutdowns, the result of sensory overwhelm. (Sidenote: Even these, though, may have been normalized or accommodated by his family. Many autistic children have an autistic parent or family member and there certainly are plenty of clues in this story about Ed. Behavior is only notable when there is no context for it. So when a boy is behaving just like his father or a little girl is just like her Aunt Susie, the kiddos may not be identified autistic until their behavior affects their school day.)

Ironically, sensory differences were not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition in use from 1994 to 2013. Instead, Christopher’s “impaired social interaction and lack of eye contact” and his “abnormal interests and inflexible adherence to routine” would be the keys to identifying his Neurodevelopmental Disorder. (Sidenote: It’s pretty clear autistic people weren’t allowed much of a say in compiling these diagnostic criteria. I wonder what Christopher would consider the most distressing part of his life experience– his profound hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation (touch, sight, sound, smell, etc) or his inconsistent use of eye contact?)

In 2014, two years after this play debuted in the UK, the DSM, 5th Edition was published, and it included as diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder, “Hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment”. So finally, though it appears last in the entry, almost as a reluctant admission, we account for one of the most universally defining traits of Autism, and indeed Neurodivergence in general. (Sidenote: I don’t love the word “unusual” because it’s clear it’s a non-autistic outsider’s point of view, but I’ll accept it until we can get it changed– can we please get on that?)

But I digress, as I said, it’s likely Christopher was diagnosed as having Autism Spectrum Disorder around the age of 3, so around the year 2000. This would be shortly after the Wakefield Paper [erroneously] linked Autism to MMR vaccines and vaccine paranoia still reigned (sound familiar?).

MMR vaccines notwithstanding, by the time Christopher was diagnosed, most doctors no longer blamed bad parenting for autism. In the 1970’s, autism’s genetic roots were proved, and in the 1980’s “infantile autism” and later just “autism,” appeared in the DSM, that is the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Edition, as a neuro-developmental disorder (rather than a form of childhood schizophrenia as it was previously classified).

Depending on when Christopher’s verbal acuity was observable in relation to his diagnostic evaluation, he may have been considered high-functioning since he had such a large vocabulary or low-functioning due to his toileting issues and explosive outbursts. Herein lies the problem with functioning labels that autistic self advocates have fought to eliminate. If a person does not speak, but is perfectly capable of participating in the world with a communication assistance device, like an AAC or text-to-speech, are they necessarily low-functioning? If a person is able to mask and appear in every way capable and comfortable during the 2 hours they must attend a college class, but afterwards spends 6 hours huddled in their room recovering from the experience, are they really high-functioning? High- or low-functioning labels tell us nothing about what kind of support the individual needs to live their best life, and autistic advocates consider them not just useless, but harmful.

Regardless of his functioning label, Christopher’s doctors would also have recommended he see therapists regularly to help him learn how to behave more like his peers. From what I have read and heard from autistic sources, Christopher would not have enjoyed these therapy sessions which would have focused on making him seem “less autistic.”

Thankfully, attitudes are shifting and neurodiversity-affirming therapy practices support autistic folks in meeting goals each individual sets for themselves, and are focused on autistic quality of life as defined by autistics themselves. Crazy, I know, but ND-affirming therapies actually focus on making the autistic individual more comfortable, not the neurotypical people around them.

Christopher in the Present

The play gives us a glimpse of Christopher at age 15 attending a separate school for children who do not thrive in traditional school environments. Though not surrounded by intellectual peers, thankfully Christopher is supported by an insightful and informed teacher who likes and respects him and whom he likes and respects in return. His father, a man we are told Christopher is just like, fights for Christopher’s right to sit his A-level Maths exam, a task he is equal to even as young as he is.

Though Christopher’s educational and daily living needs are being met, he is not well understood by anyone other than his teacher and father, who often seems overwhelmed and struggles to cope with his own social differences. Thus, in 2012, 15-yr old Christopher fares better than he might have had been born 20 or 30 years earlier, but he is still “other” – isolated and misunderstood by society at large.

The Neurodiversity Movement

Things are about to get really interesting in Christopher’s world. In 2015, three years after this play debuted, two important books were published for the mainstream (non-academic) reader. Barry Prizant released Uniquely Human, A Different Way of Seeing Autism which reinforced that “There is no such thing as autistic behavior,” (spoiler alert– it’s all HUMAN behavior).

If Prizant’s book became a practical guidebook to understanding autism, Steve Silberman’s enormous tome, Neurotribes, The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, documented the history and evolution of our understanding of autism in all if its disturbing details (spoiler alert– the Nazi’s were @ssholes and many early psychologists were self-serving egomaniacs). Notably, the release of this book is one of the earliest instances of the word “Neurodiversity” showing up in front of a mainstream, neurotypical audience.

Though these books were helpful in giving a push to the general un-initiated population, an important shift was already happening within the autistic community itself, far away from the ivory towers and medical universities. With the advent of the internet, autistic people found each other, support, and community in the late ‘90s. On the social media platforms of the 2010’s, autistics finally had a long-denied voice that reached the masses. These crusaders claimed autism as their identity, and rejected the idea of curing themselves. They decried therapies that trained autistics to stop stimming and to make eye contact at all costs.

While organizations run by non-autistic leaders focused on researching cures and prevention, autistic-led organizations focused on educating neurotypicals and improving autistic quality of life. This was The Neurodiversity Movement in action, initially confined to autism but eventually growing into include all neurodivergent conditions.

Recent studies estimate at least 20% of the global human population is neurodivergent– that is their brains are wired and connected differently from the other 80% of people. Notice the word is wired differently, not deficiently. Neurodivergent brains are not “broken” neurotypical brains, and therefore they don’t need to be “fixed.” Nueordivergent brains are actually operating exactly as they are supposed to.

Modern medical imaging reveals that Dyslexic, ADHD, and Autistic brains have different pathways and webs of connectivity than their neurotypical counterparts. These distinct pathways mean that neurodivergent brains process information differently, synthesize input in unique ways, perceive other details, provide alternative viewpoints, disrupt and challenge constructs, express in new ways, recognize the patterns and systems that organize our world, and then think beyond them.

These brain differences are not flaws; they are part of the diversity that helps our species thrive.

HOWEVER. Embracing neurodiversity DOES NOT MEAN ignoring that people with neurodivergent brains are living with disabilities, impairments, and challenges. Dis-ability is also a normal variation of the human experience.

Disability Models

Not all autistic people are disabled, and many autistic individuals are more disabled by society’s constructs, social conventions and expectations than they are by their brain-wiring. The neurodiversity movement is based on a social model of disability which means it is incumbent on us to eliminate the obstacles inherent in our society, rather than placing the onus of change on the individual. In other words, design our communities for the least able, and then everyone will be en-abled.

Breaking that down, the medical model of disability says a healthy “normal” human is able to walk and climb steps so we’ll build steps. If you can’t walk, well then you’ll have to figure that one out on your own. The social model of disability says, gee, by installing a ramp, this person who uses a wheelchair will now be able to enter the library, and will you look at that…. so can everyone else! The Neurodiversity Movement endorses the same premise– if we design buildings to be quieter, allow for a variety of work and learning styles, and give people different ways to communicate, then everyone benefits and no one is excluded. Sign me up.

The Neurodiversity Movement gained traction during the pandemic as everyone shifted to online interactions. We were spending more time on social media, connecting with different people and learning about them and about ourselves in return. Also, we saw that it WAS possible to do things differently (because we had to) and we found these ways allowed more people access to society.

Shopping in a grocery store can be an overwhelming experience for a sensory-averse autistic person– all those flickery buzzy overhead fluorescent lights, so much visual information to absorb to inform all the choices we make, so many different people, smells, temperatures… but the pandemic forced us to adopt online ordering and contactless pick-up. While many have returned to old shopping habits, I can totally see a now 25-yr old Christopher shopping for his beans and broccoli this way. By ordering on his phone and having it delivered to his door, he would no longer be dependent on caregivers in order to shop for food. Hooray for autonomy.

What changes are you noticing? What is making your lives easier and what makes them harder? We’re curious– stop by and chat with us!