Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 4-17-2008 Reading Autistic Experience Natalie Collins Trice Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Trice, Natalie Collins, "Reading Autistic Experience." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2008. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/27 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. READING AUTISTIC EXPERIENCE by NATALIE COLLINS TRICE Under the Direction of Dr. Margaret Mills Harper ABSTRACT Within the field of Disability Studies, research on cognitive and developmental disabilities is relatively rare in comparison to other types of disabilities. Using Clifford Geertz‘s anthropological approach, ―thick description,‖ autism can be better understood by placing both fiction and non-fiction accounts of the disorder into a larger theoretical context. Applying concepts from existing works in Disability Studies to the major writings of Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, and Donna Haraway also proves to be mutually enlightening. This ethnographic approach within the context of analysis of literary texts provides a model by which representations of individuals who are cognitively or developmentally disabled can be included in the academy. INDEX WORDS: Autism, Disability Studies, Cognitive Disability, Developmental Disability, Clifford Geertz, Thick Description, Fiction, Non-fiction, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Donna Haraway READING AUTISTIC EXPERIENCE by NATALIE COLLINS TRICE A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2008 Copyright by Natalie Collins Trice 2008 READING AUTISTIC EXPERIENCE by NATALIE COLLINS TRICE Committee Chair: Margaret Mills Harper Committee: Nancy Chase Calvin Thomas Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2008 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this project to my son, Kelton Trice, who has taught me about autism and so much more. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation committee members (Dr. Meg Harper, Dr. Nancy Chase, and Dr. Calvin Thomas) for their enthusiasm for my project and their assistance in clarifying my ideas. I would also like to thank my family for their support during this process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTERS ―Deconstructing Autism: Derrida and Developmental Disability‖ 19 ―Remembering the Body: Kristeva‘s Genotext and Phenotext in Autism Texts‖ 58 ―A Closer Look: The Lacanian Registers in Autism‖ 95 ―Animals and Machines: Haraway and the Autistic Mind‖ 140 CONCLUSION 178 BIBLIOGRAPHY 183 1 Introduction With incidents of autism skyrocketing since the mid-1990s, one in every 166 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is now estimated to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. While many family members of people with autism hope that an increase in awareness of the multi-faceted condition (which can include communication, behavioral, social, and sensory components) will lead to a cure, many high- functioning persons with autism (such as those with Asperger‘s Syndrome) argue that it is a particular way of being and not something in need of a cure. Dawn Prince-Hughes explains in her memoir about life with Asperger‘s Syndrome, Songs of the Gorilla Nation, ―Much like the deaf community, we autistics are building an emergent culture. We individuals, with our cultures of one, are building a culture of many‖ (7). As both a community of activists looking for answers and a distinctive culture (not unlike Deaf culture) emerge, scholarly explorations of autism are positioned to emerge within the burgeoning field of disability studies, the newest form of identity politics. Autism gains clarity from and sheds new light on theories of language acquisition and subjectivity. While autism has existed in every era and society, it was first diagnosed in the 1940s, almost simultaneously, in Baltimore, by Leo Kanner, and in Vienna, by Hans Asperger. In what Oliver Sacks, author of a collection of medical narratives titled An Anthropologist on Mars, calls ―a nice example of historical synchronicity,‖ both men independently described the condition and labeled it ―autism,‖ noting an inability to connect with others and a limited range of interests in autistic persons, as well as their repetitive, almost ritualistic, behavior (190). During the 1970s, Lorna Wing and other researchers working in the emerging field of cognitive psychology 2 in London identified a ―triad of impairments,‖ consisting of difficulties with social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and imaginative play, which they felt to be ―expressive of a single, fundamental developmental disturbance‖ (245-6). Temple Grandin also emphasizes in her first-person study of autism, Thinking in Pictures, the sensory component of the disorder, which can involve both under- and over-reactive sensory processing and a scrambling of different types of sensory input (58). Grandin notes that the current diagnostic categories are autism, Asperger‘s syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), and disintegrative disorder. She explains, ―Some consider these categories to be true separate entities, and others believe that they lie on an autistic continuum and there is no definite distinction between them‖ (45-6). Dawn Prince- Hughes discusses classic autism, also known as Kanner‘s Syndrome, in Songs of the Gorilla Nation. The symptoms of classic autism, the form of autism with which most people are familiar, include impairments in the use of nonverbal, expressive gestures (like facial expression and body posture), an inability to form social relationships with peers, a flat affect, delayed or absent development of spoken language, impaired ability to initiate or sustain a conversation, a preoccupation with restricted patterns of interest, a compulsion to perform specific routines or rituals, flapping or twisting, and a preoccupation with parts of objects. (28) Prince-Hughes contrasts the classic form of autism with her own, Asperger‘s Syndrome, which differs in its lack of significant language or cognitive delays, including mastery of daily living skills. Individuals with Asperger‘s Syndrome do, however, share many of the same sensory and behavioral attributes with classic autism, including problems making or maintaining social 3 connections (29). Although Hans Asperger was researching the disorder decades earlier, the syndrome named for him was not added until the fourth edition of the definitive reference manual for psychologists, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), in 1994. Thus, many adults with Asperger‘s Syndrome, like Dawn Prince-Hughes, were not diagnosed until adulthood and were forced to find creative ways to compensate for their condition (28). Temple Grandin explains in Thinking in Pictures that Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is often confused with Aperger‘s Syndrome because its symptoms are mild enough not to elicit one of the other diagnostic labels. Disintegrative disorder, on the other hand, accounts for some of the most serious cases of autism. Children with this form of autism develop typically until approximately the age of two. Then the child suddenly regresses, losing speech and other developmental achievements, which are often never regained. Individuals with disintegrative disorder are often the lowest-functioning people on the autism spectrum and are usually unable to live independently during adulthood (47-8). The range of abilities for people on the autism spectrum can vary greatly. Dawn Prince- Hughes, who holds a doctorate in anthropology, points out that many high-functioning individuals like herself who have Asperger‘s Syndrome can be quite gifted intellectually. Temple Grandin addresses the severity of the disorder for persons on the lower end of the autism spectrum, who often are unable to speak and perform the simplest daily tasks like dressing themselves. She stresses that it is usually difficult to predict the eventual level of functioning at the time when most children are diagnosed as toddlers (52). Oliver Sacks, who includes medical studies of both Temple Grandin and Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant with exceptional artistic skills, in An Anthropologist on Mars, notes that despite their popularity in movies and other media, only about ten percent of autistic persons exhibit savant skills; however, their 4 presence in the autism community is certainly noteworthy (191). In the appendix to her novel for adolescents, Al Capone Does My Shirt, Gennifer Choldenko explains that like her own sister Gina, Natalie, the sister of her main character Moose Flanagan, is autistic. While effective treatments had not been developed when she was growing up or during the 1930s, when her novel is set, she is optimistic about the recent potential for early treatment with Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), which involves breaking down each task to be learned into smaller