15/08/2011
Kristen Dunleavy
When we encounter anyone with a disability, one of the first things we might assume is that they’re not like us. Neurotypical, a new documentary by director Adam Larsen, aims to eradicate that notion once and for all. (Neurotypical is a label for people who are not autistic.)The film focuses on the lives of children and adults alike with varying degrees of autism to give an honest portrayal of their everyday lives. Below, Adam explains why he was compelled to show this perspective on autism and why we all should consider expanding our understanding of what it is to be normal.
Why did you decide to film a documentary about autism?
Growing up, my father worked for the North CarolinaTEACCH program, a state-funded organization that works with families of those with autism. We would have social group gatherings at my house, which means individuals from all over the spectrum would come over the house and we’d have food and play games. So from an early age I was exposed to the world of autism through the people, not through any sort of diagnosis. I became friends with individuals on the spectrum before even considering that they’re neurologically different in any kind of clinical way.
I went to film school and because I had a connection with autism through my father, I really felt there was this great disparity between the way the media and movies represented individuals with autism. They would represent them in a clinical manner; rarely do you get to see the personality of someone with autism, and their reality and their perspective. I felt there needed to be a documentary that was from their perspective. Upon graduating from school, I had this idea in my head to do that film. It still took a number of years before it happened, but it did and I ended up collaborating with my father on it.
After filming this documentary, did you feel like you had more in common with people with autism and was it a goal of yours to help your audience feel connected with them?
I think we all have a lot in common with autistics and neurotypicals alike. The media says how different we are, and there are big differences especially when you get into individuals who are more severe on the spectrum, who are nonverbal. But because it is a spectrum, there is a huge range of qualities that make up any individual, neurotypical or with autism. My initial goal was to allow those with autism to speak for themselves and share their perspectives and experiences. You weren’t looking at them through the lens of their diagnosis. You were able to consider them as functioning humans.
Autistics and neurotypicals share many commonalities. There are certainly extremes that autistics express where they have difficultly managing sensory inputs and stuff like that, which we as neurotypicals have an easier time managing. That was one of the things I found in filming, I really did connect on wonderful levels with all these individuals and their various personalities. I’m happy that people can relate to the people in the film. We no longer have this black and white perspective of who an autistic person is. We can expand the range of what is considered human in general. Humans have many shades to them.
How did you go about recruiting your subjects and making sure everyone was comfortable being on camera?
One of the benefits of my father working with the TEACCH program is that he knew many individuals. We filmed about 30 interviews initially. I knew many of those people and I started putting the word out on message boards and chat rooms for autism and Asperger’s. I had a pretty healthy response. One of the benefits of not having a film crew is that I’d show up alone with a camera and a light and I could find out what that individual’s comfort level was and make an environment for them to tell stories and talk about their experience. I was able to get these intimate portraits because I wasn’t intrusive in filming. I didn’t have a big crew or anything like that.
Jonathan, a dyslexic, brought up the notion in the documentary that parents want to help their disabled child learn, but there is a fine line between being a parent and being a trainer. Would you agree?
Absolutely. If you’re researching ways to aide and benefit your child, if you look online there’s a number of ways of possible ways to go about that. It’s overwhelming. A lot of these methods are very persuasive and very aggressive. Not to say that aggressive therapy can’t show results, because I think if you work hard enough with someone, they will show improvement. I come from more of a holistic background, and the goal is to reach individuals where they are so it’s on the therapist to grow as much as the child is.
I think there is a fine line between the effort that goes into having your child succeed to their best ability in this world, and also being a parent. It requires an intense amount of work, especially early on for a child to develop the skills to succeed. I’m not a parent, so I can’t say for sure, but I know in talking to parents that I interview, they go back and forth from having great moments where they feel like a mom and other moments that are incredibly challenging and their child is going through a lot of stress. At that point they’re trying to solve their behaviors, in which case they may feel more like a trainer.
Five-year-old Violet’s parents said that they didn’t want to have Violet diagnosed as autistic because that would ultimately limit her. On the other hand, Paula, who is older, seemed to benefit from her diagnosis. Do you think that the benefit of getting an official diagnoses ultimately depends on the individual?
Absolutely. I think that can come at any stage of life. Nicolas from the film isn’t officially diagnosed with autism, but he’s aware of being different. His parents have allowed him to come to terms with his differences at his own pace. I think that’s really important. I think in the case of an individual like Violet, a diagnosis could help her parents get benefits to help her in school. It can help her succeed better.
In Nicolas’s case it might benefit him to know how he might navigate socially in his world, but a pronounced difference might keep him away from his peers. They might ostracize him as a result of his difference. I’ve met many adults who’ve said diagnosis was a wonderful thing, because it gave them a better way to understand who they were and why certain relationships didn’t work out or why they had sensitivities in certain areas. They had a community, so they didn’t feel as isolated and alone as they had previously.
Do you also think that the benefits of medication vary from person to person?
Definitely. Many individuals with Asperger’s and autism suffer from depression and even anxiety. Parents with children sometimes find that medication is important to help their children cope and succeed. It can benefit the family sometimes if the behaviors are really extreme. As Wolf says in the film, medication should only be used to help someone work smart and succeed. If it’s used to calm someone down so they aren’t truly themselves, then I think it’s a really bad use of it. Many autistics who may not feel connected as to society as neurotypicals often do deal with depression, so whether or not they turn to medicine is up to them.
In the film, a middle-schooler named Maddi said: “If people are normal, they can act however they want, if they have a syndrome people want to change them.” Do you agree?
I think it’s a really smart statement that Maddi gave, especially from a middle schooler. In middle school, you deal with fitting in and trying to find your place. Middle school is a perfect bell curve for everybody’s differences. You have the popular crowd, you have the middle-range crowd and you have the nerdy crowd. It can be really true.
With special education, there’s this strong desire for remediation and teaching kids to learn the skills and behaviors to fit in. Special education lumps these people with varying abilities into one classroom. It’s incredibly problematic. You might have an individual who is incredibly smart lumped together with someone who has a major learning disability. She’s talking about being in special education where she’s learning social skills, like eye contact. It’s these sorts of things that she considers manners, and good manners. Her peers don’t ever have to learn that. In her case, it’s definitely very true.
How do you feel about the highly controversial notion that environmental factors and vaccines cause autism?
In making this film, I wanted to avoid any sort of clinical representation of autistics or data. That’s why I focused on people and didn’t focus on numbers. I personally don’t see any correlation between these claims, but I wanted to make a film about the people where you were not looking at that person through a lens of figures or data. You were hearing them tell their stories and their experiences.
Wolf says at the end of the documentary that he would never want to be neurotypical, because he’s happy the way he is. Do you think that in our society we associate our notion of normal with happiness too much?
I think to a degree, yes. Neurological differences are really hard to relate to. It’s easier for us to see an individual in a wheelchair as physically handicapped than to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine what it might be like to be put in their situation. When you’re sick, it’s practically impossible to imagine how it is to feel good. We’re present-tense individuals. I wouldn’t necessarily say we attribute being normal to being happy, but I think neurological differences are scary. If you see someone who is exhibiting behavior that is not normal, it’s scary. A goal of the film is to have people expand the idea of what normal is.
What was one thing you learned about autism that surprised you after making this film?
I think it’s interesting that I initially set off to make a really stylized film. I’m a cinematographer and I was imagining delving into the world of autism in a really stylistic way, having the audience feel what it might be like to have autism. I started realizing that with any style I wanted to attach to it, I needed to strip it away. I needed to represent these individuals as honestly as possible. That’s why it’s a relatively simple film and the editing is quite minimalistic. I just wanted people to hear what they were saying.
You never get an opportunity to hear a person with autism tell a story and you never hear that in the news because everything appears in very short sound bites. My goal was not to be manipulative in the method of filmmaking and let their portrayals be as honest as possible.
Were you looking to change any preconceived ideas about autism?
I think mostly my goal for the goal is for people to leave with a broader understanding of autism. Stereotypes are really misleading, especially stereotypes that the media presents. Autism is a much bigger thing than a nonverbal child or a savant. That’s what the media presents because they’re dramatic. I definitely want the audience to expand their notion of what should be considered functional. We all come into contact with quirky individuals that we may immediately discount and say they’re this or they’re that. You can’t be so flippant about it. Maybe the film will make you think about the individuals around you and make you have a little more compassion for their experience.