Autism Is Like a Fruit Salad with Dr. Temple Grandin
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Irish Examiner Irish Examiner 14 Wednesday, 19.08.2015 Wednesday, 19.08.2015 15 @irishexaminer www.irishexaminer.com /irishexaminer PUNK NOT DEAD: John Lydon is back SWAP THE OFFICE FOR A BOAT: touring with PiL and even has a new We meet the landlubbers who took a album on the way. He tells us all about it year out to join the Clipper crew ARTS/LIFE/STYLE TOMORROW IN ARTS >> TOMORROW IN ARTS/LIFE >> www.irishexaminer.com Wednesday, 19 August, 2015 Reviews The Libertines Stephen Witt’s book traces the fascinating Anthem for development of illegal Doomed Youth Death of file-sharing online. Virgin EMI Autism is like a fruit salad HHH The Libertines were adored for their louche, bedraggled world- view — equal parts Lord Byron and uthor, public speaker and aut- there weren’t smearing, they weren’t early Rolling Stones — as much as ism consultant, Donna WIl- No two people incontinent, they were toileted, they Following Temple Grandin the music liams (pictured below) de- were starting to speak in two- and for their often workaday indie methods has been of benefit rock. scribes autism as a “fruit three-word sentences.” Indeed, 11 years from their sec- salad” in which various com- are the same, so Donna says she had been shocked to toddler Luke O’Mahony ond record, it’s that cultivated lad- Aponents and differences combine to to encounter ‘personality dependent n Luke O’Mahony is aged 2½ and was dishness, 50% football hooligan, make no two people the same. why should disorder’ in the world of autism first diagnosed in December 2014 as hav- 50% weeping undergraduate poet, “To understand any person’s aut- where carers of children with vari- ing high functioning autism with accom- that endures, the music taking a ism, you have to understand the treatments for ous levels of disability take over so panying speech impairment. He is the son distinct second place. pieces of the ‘fruit salad’ that came many of the child’s functions, that of Ben and Denise O’Mahony and lives in industry together to mentally develop, chal- the child “gets the impression that In that context, the quality of the autism be? Crosshaven, Co Cork. Londoners’ third album is over- lenge or derail that particular person they are loved and looked after be- His mother said that initially Luke had whelmingly irrelevant — more in a whole range of areas,” said the cause this person rescues them”. “poor eye contact, delayed speech and important is that the old gang is Australian, who has also been diag- Donna Williams She says: “If you train the parent to there was an awful lot of frustration” with back together, the bromantic nosed with autism. get it wrong, to behave as if they have HAT happens when an him. power coupling of Pete Doherty She advises to look beyond the tells Micheál developed dementia and forgotten “The biggest thing for us was that he and Carl Barât providing the entire generation commits Stephen Witt has label and focus on the person. “This how to do these activities, suddenly the same crime? That’s the didn’t communicate. He didn’t respond to group with its focus and raison person is a person first and, yes, they the kid starts doing their own toilet- anything that we did, like a typical child d’être. question posed by Stephen happen to have a condition, but never O’Mahony how ing. They start doing their self-feed- Witt’s book, How Music Got documented would. For example if you were singing to Anthems For Doomed Youth was lose sight of their own character, ing, they start opening doors they him, ‘he wouldn’t look at you, he wouldn’t WFree. their own personality, because if you couldn’t open…..it was just teaching recorded in Thailand, with Doher- she copes with Witt declares in the introduction join you or anything like that.” ty arriving, as per Barât’s insist- how a generation lose sight of it, they will too,” she the parent how to turn around Speaking about hearing the diagnosis ence, straight from rehab (his sub- that he is a member of the pirate said. learned helplessness.” generation, collecting over 100,000 the condition of her child’s condition, Denise said: stance abuse having triggered the came to expect “If you turn them into a case, their When talking about her own ex- “Your life is being rewritten right in front downfall of the quartet back in the mp3s — nearly 15,000 albums worth identity will fall by the wayside. Get perience of growing up, she said: — on 1,500 gigabytes of music. His of you and you have no way of stopping or 2000s). out of your head all the ideas, the as- “As a kid, I was in a welfare pro- changing it.” downloads are a drop in the ocean of all their music for sumptions and stereotypes that gramme from six months to 2½ years The sense of musicians starting in their development.” Denise noticed that the way in which he over is palpable and the songs are what he calls the death of the music would block you from clearly seeing old. I believe the routine of that and industry, with 100bn files shared and To understand people with autism, perceived the world and his reactions to hazier, more strung-out than be- free, writes the ‘fruit salad’ that is in front of the predictability of it gave someone events around him, were similar to that of $21bn lost from 1996 to 2010. you.” she advises. Donna says: “We should also learn like me - who couldn’t process lan- fore. how the person with autism is com- autism activist, Temple Grandin (inter- Far from delivering a kiss of ir- Through three vastly-different “Because (different) strategies and guage and for whom the world was characters — a German scientist Eoghan municating through their behaviour viewed below). His parents discovered relevance, the seeming absence of approaches are going to unlock de- very visually fragmented and who that by continuously repeating a word, called Karlheinz Brandenburg, who velopment for that person.” or is communicating through their could not simultaneously process urgency is liberating. patterns.” until he knew what the word meant - a With Doherty and Barât’s vocals invented the mp3 and thus paved the O’Sullivan She highlights the importance of self and other - gave me exactly what way for music piracy to flourish; A lot of people with autism can ex- principle which Temple recommends - intertwining and occasionally in- managing our assumptions, saying: I needed, which was a sense of rou- was beneficial. music executive Doug Morris; and “One of the important things is to perience sensory overload (chronic tine and a sense of placement and distinguishable, ‘Barbarians’ (a re- “fight-or-flight” states) and not be She stressed the importance of “speak- working of an older piece from factory-line worker Bennie Lyndell presume competence. Don’t presume that was really important in building Glover, aka Dell Glover, aka the able to filter the level of information ing directly with (Luke) and being consist- Barât’s project, Babyshambles) incompetence. Remember that this belief that I could safely interact ent with discipline,” which Temple advo- patient zero of internet music piracy people don’t always have to know, in coming in. This can result in con- with people.” blends upbeat tempos and a jerking fusion, and a complete sensory over- cates, and which worked well for them, bass, while Doherty slips into con- — Witt tells a story he says has never order to do.” In comparing her life with that of a been told before. load. To manage this, Donna recom- and for Luke. fessional setting on ‘Heart Of The The world of a person with autism non-autistic person, she said: “I am When talking about Temple Grandin’s “You think you know this story can look very different to that of a mends helping the person with aut- really pleased that I got to know what Matter’ (“with all the battering it’s ism to find a physical or auditory methods she said: “In terms of his speech, taken/I’m surprised that it’s still about technology and history and Witt was fascinated by Dell Glover, non-autistic person. Donna says: “I it was to experience those really piracy, but you really don’t, and the coming across him early into his rhythm. She said: “If you start one he has come on leaps and bounds” and ticking”). saw my world in bits, so I got the ears basic things, that non-autistic people working with a speech and language actors who made it happen are just research for the book, having exam- of the cat, lost the head. Got the head and slow it down…….it’s something have in the blink of an eye, in daily In his late 30s, he is perhaps old the person’s body and brain can tune therapist has also helped. enough to have a premonition of re- the most obscure and fascinating ined hundreds of government and lost the body.” life.” figures.” files on music pirates. into. And you see a lot of autistic kids As a result of researching Grandin, De- gret over half a lifetime of excess However, at the age of 28, she was Donna credits the use of an amino nise has also started to limit the amount Glover is our unknowing hero, the “He’s always got some- able to see the world in a new way be- trying to self-regulate like this.