978-1572305441

Trevor 137
library, where she took him once a week to interact with other children.
She talked to team members about the meaning of certain behaviors.
She learned that Trevor had a different set of priorities, a different set of
values from the rest of us. Trevor did not choose these values of his own
free will; they were imposed on him by the contingency of his biology.
Trevor’s priorities were sensory—visual patterns and textures—not
social interaction. His mother could see that he had an incredible memory
for details; it was this that consistently caught his attention, not the
presence of another person. From her work in the maternity unit in the
hospital, Alice knew that babies were attracted by the human face.
Trevor seemed to ignore faces but stared for hours at the mobile swinging
over his crib. Alice also knew that toddlers were aware of where
their mothers were at all times. Trevor, on the other hand, could watch
cartoons all day long and never checked to see if she was still in the
kitchen cooking dinner. Trevor’s world revolved around a different axis,
just as Heather’s did (see Chapter 2)—it was as simple and yet as mysterious
as that.
By observing her son closely in this way, Alice could now see how
the fundamental deficits and strengths that affect all children with ASDs
take shape in the autistic behavior of an individual child: How Trevor
might ignore faces because he had no intuitive understanding of how facial
expressions were a window into someone’s thoughts and feelings.
How the mobile was not a bunch of “silly cardboard pieces” to Trevor
but an object through which Trevor saw facets of the intimate architecture
of the world that most of us never notice. How communication,
such a natural, automatic developmental achievement for typical children,
was to her son as formidable an achievement as learning calculus
at age thirty-six months. How frustrating it must be for Trevor to lack
the skills of asking for help if he wants more bubbles blown his way, if
he wants more juice. Alice began to imagine as well how important the
ability to be soothed and comforted was for children. Children get
bumps and bruises all the time; they get scared, feel lonely, feel hurt.
Alice was sure that Trevor felt all these things too, but he would not
come to her for comfort, and if she picked him up to soothe him, it had
no impact. In fact, it must feel to him like he is in a vise grip. The world
must seem a frightening and bewildering place for Trevor, and he had to
face all these challenges alone.
With this understanding it now became possible to build a more
positive relationship between mother and son. Alice learned to read
Trevor’s behavior as a communication of his internal state. She became