Speech Therapy

Autism Spectrum Disorders-Through the Words of Famous Autistic People

Tito Rajashri Mukhopadhyay and Temple Grandin are two very successful individuals despite suffering from autism spectrum disorders. These two autistic yet successful individuals have made use of their writing skills to explain what autism is like and what actually goes on in the mind of an autistic child.

Tito Rajashri Mukhopadhyay: Mr. Mukhopadhyay, aged just 21 is an Indian poet who suffers from one of the autism spectrum disorders. Tito is a non-verbal autistic individual who has learnt to express himself through writing, thanks to his mother’s tireless efforts.

  • One of the very few autistic individuals who has mastered the art of writing, Tito had written the book Beyond the Silence, my Life, when he was only eleven. In this book Tito explains his autistic behaviours as a three year old. He often used to spin like a fan did (most autistic individuals are attracted to fans and motors) and was fascinated about separate blades of the fan forming a circle while spinning.
  • Tito had problems with getting accustomed to a new house at the age of three and all the toys at the new place looked out of context to him. The toys in the new place even started to scare Tito rendering him unable to play with them.
  • Also, Tito found it very difficult to express his emotions and even in the grimmest of occasions was often laughing instead of feeling sad.

Temple Grandin: Actually, Dr.Temple Grandin (Ph.D) is a professor at the Colorado State University and she teaches Animal Science. Thinking in Pictures, The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationship and The Way I See It are a few of her published works.

  • Temple had problems with reasoning and to overcome this problem she had to visualise each and every word into a picture in order to understand what was going on. Even the simplest of things like interrupting a conversation took her a while to contemplate.
  • She says that the reason for a few autistic people not responding to a situation immediately can be attributed to their process of visualisation which takes them a while to finish.
  • She also gives advice to the parents of such visually thinking autistic children who can draw images of aeroplanes very easily. She encourages them to also help them draw related images such as hangars and runways.

Children who suffer from autism spectrum disorders are unique. Each child exhibits different traits of the disorders and it is important that each individual child receives different approach during therapy sessions.

Leave a reply
