Last month, Ron Suskind had a gripping article in the New York Times Magazine about how he used his autistic son’s love of Disney movie to reach his boy. The article was an except from his new memoir about raising his son.
Today, the Times discusses how Suskind’s memoir is helping to spur new research and to create a new approach towards educated kids, primarily those with more severe needs.
It’s pretty cool how a parenting memoir can shift the scientific and educational research. Each family is its own laboratory, after all.
Apt. 11d 
I’ll admit to a certain amount of cynicism that a research study plan (a grant application, in fact) is being pre-announced in the NY times. That group Gabrieli & Simon-Cohen are heavy hitters, but, Simon-Cohen, in particular, someone who crosses the line between science and hype.
I like the study idea, though. I think that many positive stories I hear (Suskinds, but also Willingham and yours, for example) show people naturally responding to their child in a way that guides their interests into growth. I have a suspicion though, that the naturalness of the interaction, and the real desire to interact on the childs’ terms plays a significant role (as with reading, or using lots of words with your child, it’s very much a relationship, where the child and the caregiver/parent/sibling is interacting in a way that gives both people joy). It will be interesting to see how the study pans out in a more abstract setting.
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I presume it’s a gripping article, rather than a griping one?
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Don’t just guess. Read the article.
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Where’s the fun in that?
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My condolences on your cousin, Laura.
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Oh, thanks. Robbie had a tragic life. His father married a beautiful woman with a mental illness. Her family covered up her illness until after the marriage. She was only sane when she was pregnant, so she had four kids. Then she went down to the basement and shot herself in the head with one of the guns in my uncle’s collection. Robbie found her. He was nine. So, he and his brothers were raised by my uncle, who wasn’t up for the job.
Robbie was always a lost soul. When we were kids, he would drive our here from Chicago and show up unannounced. He would sleep on the sofa for a month, until my dad told him to go home. He later worked at the University of Chicago as a typewriter repairman. When I was a student, I would go over to his house for dinner sometimes. He and his wife later adopted five kids, all crack babies. His diability checks have been supporting all those kids (who are now single moms with seven babies).
He was 62. He vomited in his sleep and asphyxiated. He was either drunk or over medicated.
Say a prayer for the lost souls.
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Will do.
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