When I was around my brother, I always tried to make contact. I never quite knew if I was successful, though. My older brother Mike has never spoken. He is autistic and very low functioning. I fault myself sometimes for perhaps requiring too much of a sign from him to indicate a connection. Mike had […]
This post falls into the category of the more things change, the more they stay the same, at least on the surface. The picture below was taken of my little brother and me. It seems as if I’m always trying to get into the act. Little brother and me: The picture is not dated, but […]
My brother was tested in 1993 and assigned an IQ of 18. [1] Not to worry, his true Adaptive Behavior composite Score is in the range of 12-28. [2] I am so relieved. If this was 1921 and we consulted the American Association of Mental Retardation (AAMR), Mike would have been promoted from Idiot (IQ […]
It’s funny how words can change meanings over the years. During my childhood, most of the attention went to my older brother, who was diagnosed with autism and profound retardation in addition to being nonverbal. Mom would take us into New York City every day and drop me off with a family friend while she […]
Photographs lie My first inkling that photographs do not tell the truth came from a conversation with Mom. “Michael never really was like that,” she used to say about some of the old snapshots we would look at now and then. It wasn’t too often, because it was painful for her to remember. There was something […]
My Dad was a theoretical physicist, and was always open to answering any questions that I had. I owe my father a great debt of gratitude for his voracious appetite for life. Some of that rubbed off. I am reminded of him because I just found something interesting in one of my journals from 1993. […]
Michael is my older brother who has never spoken and is autistic and low functioning. He was a patient at Willowbrook, a state mental institution, which used to be on Staten Island, New York, and was home to 6,000 patients. After Willowbrook was shut down for widespread abuse, my brother was placed in a group […]
Background One of the major issues that I have been/am faced with is my relationship with attention. As a competent (physically and mentally) middle sibling, between an unreachable, low-functioning, autistic and nonverbal older brother and a precocious, talented, bright younger brother, lack of attention is what I got plenty of (at least that is how […]
I would like to keep the focus of my blog on autism. In my mission statement, I say that I want to talk about autism in relation to family dynamics, neuroscience, the history of treatment of mental disorders and medical ethics. However, I think the best contribution I can make is to relate my own […]
Facial expressions When I started visiting my brother more regularly, I tried to think of what I could do to help. Mike is low functioning, autistic and nonverbal, so he cannot contribute much to his own care. The only evidence of how he feels is through his behavior. I had been thinking about making a […]
