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In search of normal
By Polly Morrice |
June 14, 2009, Sunday
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IN the 1970s, when autism was a rare diagnosis and accounts of raising a child with the disorder were far less common, Noah Greenfeld, the subject of several well-received books by his father, Josh, was "probably the most famous autistic child in America." Or so claims journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld, Noah's older brother. His new memoir supplies anecdotes to prove his point -- a "60 Minutes" crew moves into the Greenfeld house; Karl's juvenilia about Noah "ends up" in The New York Times and Esquire. Yet for Karl, living in a family that was "one of the public accounts of autism" was shaming. He became "locally famous," as he puts it, "for nothing more than having a retard brother."
Three decades past his unwanted fame, Greenfeld doesn't tell us why he's brought Noah back into the public gaze, but "Boy Alone" does exhume some festering emotions. Recent autism memoirs range from accounts of strenuous "healing" to reflections on accepting the condition. Such a reaction isn't found in Greenfeld's book, which starts with his earliest memories of Noah as a puzzle, a little boy who won't play and can't talk. Noah had once spoken in complete sentences, but soon after his second birthday he regressed, losing his language during six heartbreaking months. In his diary, his father described Noah as "a burden, withdrawing in steps; the moments of connection, of entry into the outer world, becoming less and less."
Desperately seeking effective therapies, the Greenfelds moved from New York -- where the "psychobabble" approach to autism still held sway -- to Los Angeles, where Noah was among the first to be treated with the behavior-modification methods of Ole Ivar Lovaas. Although "operant conditioning" has since been refined into a first-line autism intervention, back then it still involved controversial "aversives" -- slapping, pinching, food deprivation (the Greenfelds drew the line at electric shocks). But nothing could restore Noah's words or reduce his violent tantrums. As he neared puberty, his parents struggled over the possibility of institutionalizing him, a struggle that collided with their other son's difficult adolescence.
At home, Karl Greenfeld retreated from his parents' worry over Noah's fate by waging fantasy "wars" in which imaginary armies clashed in his house and yard. A "nerd" who was also "an academic bust," he smoked pot and clung to his plastic models of aircraft carriers. Dismayed by Karl's slowness at math, his mother, who is Japanese, enrolled him in a cram school "filled with 47 chattering Japanese kids, doing algebra, and nothing but algebra."
Karl vividly shows how his parents' focus on Noah, and Noah's profound autism, left him the "boy alone" of the book's title. But he insists on ironic shock (giving us his adolescent take on Noah as a "spitting, jibbering, finger-twiddling, head-bobbing idiot") when quieter observations (noting that he didn't really comprehend sibling relationships until he watched his young daughters) are more affecting.
The book's emphasis, however, stays on what might be called the brotherhood problem: can you love, and someday care for, a sibling who will never return your affection? The answer may not reassure the parents of autistic children, but it probably won't surprise them, either.
Three decades past his unwanted fame, Greenfeld doesn't tell us why he's brought Noah back into the public gaze, but "Boy Alone" does exhume some festering emotions. Recent autism memoirs range from accounts of strenuous "healing" to reflections on accepting the condition. Such a reaction isn't found in Greenfeld's book, which starts with his earliest memories of Noah as a puzzle, a little boy who won't play and can't talk. Noah had once spoken in complete sentences, but soon after his second birthday he regressed, losing his language during six heartbreaking months. In his diary, his father described Noah as "a burden, withdrawing in steps; the moments of connection, of entry into the outer world, becoming less and less."
Desperately seeking effective therapies, the Greenfelds moved from New York -- where the "psychobabble" approach to autism still held sway -- to Los Angeles, where Noah was among the first to be treated with the behavior-modification methods of Ole Ivar Lovaas. Although "operant conditioning" has since been refined into a first-line autism intervention, back then it still involved controversial "aversives" -- slapping, pinching, food deprivation (the Greenfelds drew the line at electric shocks). But nothing could restore Noah's words or reduce his violent tantrums. As he neared puberty, his parents struggled over the possibility of institutionalizing him, a struggle that collided with their other son's difficult adolescence.
At home, Karl Greenfeld retreated from his parents' worry over Noah's fate by waging fantasy "wars" in which imaginary armies clashed in his house and yard. A "nerd" who was also "an academic bust," he smoked pot and clung to his plastic models of aircraft carriers. Dismayed by Karl's slowness at math, his mother, who is Japanese, enrolled him in a cram school "filled with 47 chattering Japanese kids, doing algebra, and nothing but algebra."
Karl vividly shows how his parents' focus on Noah, and Noah's profound autism, left him the "boy alone" of the book's title. But he insists on ironic shock (giving us his adolescent take on Noah as a "spitting, jibbering, finger-twiddling, head-bobbing idiot") when quieter observations (noting that he didn't really comprehend sibling relationships until he watched his young daughters) are more affecting.
The book's emphasis, however, stays on what might be called the brotherhood problem: can you love, and someday care for, a sibling who will never return your affection? The answer may not reassure the parents of autistic children, but it probably won't surprise them, either.
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