Aspies For Freedom

Book Review

Joe: The Only Boy In The World, by Michael Blastland
Memoir of a condition through which everything is illuminated

By Julie Wheelwright
The Independent
31 January 2006

After an excellent Radio 4 programme about his autistic son, Michael Blastland has written an account of Joe's first year at a special school in 2004. Like any parent sending a child to boarding school, Blastland agonises about whether he has made the right decision, whether his son will make friends and blossom, while wrestling with his guilty relief at Joe's absence.

But this book does not tread down the sullied tabloid path of triumph over tragedy. Instead Blastland, a current affairs radio producer, explores how a deeper understanding of his son's thinking processes provides insight into how the rest of us think, feel and make decisions. "What makes him fascinating?" asks Blastland. "In part, seeing what we have in comparison to what he lacks. He makes much that we take for granted appear suddenly luminous."

There was a pivotal moment when Blastland and his ex-wife (they live in separate houses within walking distance) decided they could no longer keep Joe, aged eight, at home. He had slipped out of the house one morning wearing only his underpants, was hit by a passing car, and was found staring rapturously at a Postman Pat video in a neighbour's house.

Blastland recounts another chilling incident where Joe, annoyed at the sound of a baby's cries, raised a fist and smashed it into the pushchair. To Blastland, who quotes philosophers and psychologists in equal measure, this episode illustrated Joe's inability to read even the most basic of human emotions - to see other people as rounded beings with wants, needs or feelings distinct from his own. This lack highlights what Blastland refers to as our "rich self-consciousness", which has enabled us to develop a sophisticated moral code.

As these episodes began to accumulate, Joe's parents realised they could no longer customise a safe world for him. If the prospect of raising a child as profoundly autistic as Joe seems daunting, Blastland does offer a startling report after a year at school. Despite Joe's initial difficulties in adjusting, he makes slow but steady developmental progress. There are new words, a shedding of his old obsessions, and even the prospect of friendship.

Blastland is aware that adolescence looms, and wonders about the excellent chances for "potential disaster" this prospect raises. His honesty is in keeping with a compelling, brave and highly readable book that never verges on the sentimental.

After an excellent Radio 4 programme about his autistic son, Michael Blastland has written an account of Joe's first year at a special school in 2004. Like any parent sending a child to boarding school, Blastland agonises about whether he has made the right decision, whether his son will make friends and blossom, while wrestling with his guilty relief at Joe's absence.

But this book does not tread down the sullied tabloid path of triumph over tragedy. Instead Blastland, a current affairs radio producer, explores how a deeper understanding of his son's thinking processes provides insight into how the rest of us think, feel and make decisions. "What makes him fascinating?" asks Blastland. "In part, seeing what we have in comparison to what he lacks. He makes much that we take for granted appear suddenly luminous."

There was a pivotal moment when Blastland and his ex-wife (they live in separate houses within walking distance) decided they could no longer keep Joe, aged eight, at home. He had slipped out of the house one morning wearing only his underpants, was hit by a passing car, and was found staring rapturously at a Postman Pat video in a neighbour's house.

Blastland recounts another chilling incident where Joe, annoyed at the sound of a baby's cries, raised a fist and smashed it into the pushchair. To Blastland, who quotes philosophers and psychologists in equal measure, this episode illustrated Joe's inability to read even the most basic of human emotions - to see other people as rounded beings with wants, needs or feelings distinct from his own. This lack highlights what Blastland refers to as our "rich self-consciousness", which has enabled us to develop a sophisticated moral code.
As these episodes began to accumulate, Joe's parents realised they could no longer customise a safe world for him. If the prospect of raising a child as profoundly autistic as Joe seems daunting, Blastland does offer a startling report after a year at school. Despite Joe's initial difficulties in adjusting, he makes slow but steady developmental progress. There are new words, a shedding of his old obsessions, and even the prospect of friendship.

Blastland is aware that adolescence looms, and wonders about the excellent chances for "potential disaster" this prospect raises. His honesty is in keeping with a compelling, brave and highly readable book that never verges on the sentimental.

Source:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books...342206.ece

I find it very disturbing that a parent would see this as a reason to put a child in an institution.

How many of us, when we were kids, thought it was a great adventure to go outside for a midnight walk in our pajamas when our parents weren't looking?  I remember doing that.  So did my kids, when they were about that age, I found them halfway down the street singing "Twinkle Twinkle" to the stars.

Just seemed like normal kid behavior to me...

Getting hit by a car is a serious event though, maybe they feared for his life.

Anyway, one would have to read the book, rather than the review, to make informed decisions about it.  :smile:

That's probably how they felt, but it's still disturbing to think about how easily any of us could have ended up being sent away to institutions if our parents had taken a different view of our behavior.  My mother was very worried that I might get hit by a car when I was about that age because I sometimes wandered out into traffic and didn't have much of a sense of danger.  She decided to move to a quiet rural area where there was little traffic and plenty of woods for happy and safe wandering.   :smile:

I know that there are many parents who can't move to a safer place, for various reasons, and one shouldn't be critical without knowing the circumstances.  However, I do think that our society, through extreme and unrealistic descriptions in the media, conditions many parents of autistic children to be overly fearful.

I used to sleepwalk a lot when I was a child.  We lived in the outback on a farm and at the end of a long farm track leading to our gate was a main road used by truckies (rice/wheat/livestock/wool transports) that thundered past at all hours of the day and night.  I could lie in bed and listen to their engines sing as they went through the gears at the bend just after our turn-off.  

My family was aware of the fact that I was wandering about, and to make sure I didn't wander up the track into the path of the trucks, Dad wouldn't tie up our sheepdogs at night.  Whenever I wandered out the door, the dogs would all jump ecstatically and fawn on me, waking me up, and I would then go back to bed by myself.  

By adolescence I had stopped going outdoors, but found that I'd do household chores when asleep.  Even now, Vernu will wake me and I'll have an armload of blankets that I've taken off the bed and am trying to stuff into the washing machine! :lol: I seem to have very domesticated dreams!

Alison

Service dogs are now being trained to be companion animals for autistic children and to help watch over them.  I think that's a very good idea.