Autism The Musical Part 1

Autism the Musical:

I first learned of this movie when I attended one of the classes for Asperger’s. The movie was done in 1997 and it follows 5 families, with additional other children and families, who have children with Autism. The range or level of severity of Autism within each child differs but what mattered was the life of each child. One mom, Elaine, forms a group/project called the Miracle Project which is a place for children with Autism, their siblings, and parents can go to feel welcome, loved, and most of all take part in a musical that Elaine wanted to create.
“In 1980, one in 10,00 children were diagnosed as Autistic and today it is 1 in every 150.”
The four children on which this movie is centered are Adam, Henry, Lexi, Neal, and Wyatt.

Neal was adopted at the age of 23 months from Russia. When he was younger he has a lot of tantrums and never slept more than two to three hours at a time. He is now, during the time of the movie, 12 years old and his mother Elaine is the creator and director of the Miracle Project. His mom and his father divorced when he was eight or so and Elaine finally met someone new, Jeff. Jeff and Elaine are both Jewish and want to get married. However, Jeff’s family don’t understand Neal and his Autism, they just want him “to be a good boy”. Neal has impulses that he can’t control, the outbursts are hard not just for others but for him as well. He is working so hard to do things that others take for granted, to just be a part of this world.

Lexi is fourteen years old and an amazing singer. When she was 21 months old, her mother started noticing things that were troubling such as not responding to her name, so she decided to do some research. After seeking help, she was only told that her daughter had something “organic”. Believing and wanting more help, she noticed more about Lexi such as her rocking, shutting her eyes and covering her ears to loud noises. Around her 3rd birthday she wasn’t hitting developmental stages, such as not talking, not potty training, and starting to lose eye contact. Finally someone gave her some answers and confirmed that Lexi did indeed have Autism. Her mother had always believed that Autism meant children “stood in a corner banging their head against the wall”. Her father broke the situation down as stages, the first being denial, then there is the fix it stage, then comes the sadness and depression (your kid has autism-forever, the end), then comes the acceptance stage, where you focus on what you need to do to help your child. But her father believed that in order for things to be ok, she needed to be different, “it’s not up to us to judge the quality of her life”, and every day is a challenge.
Lexi also has Echolalia, meaning she can repeat back what is said to her but she has a hard time generating her own speech. Lexi said that Autism means that something is damaged.

Henry is another child followed in the film, who is middle school aged. When he was two years old he started to show an unusual interest in dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, becoming obsessed with them. Henry has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high functioning Autism where he is very intelligent in specific areas such as dinosaurs and reptiles but socially lacks skills and withdraws into his own world and talks to himself. His father, believes that there are many theories as to what causes Autism but no one has identified anything particularly to help.

Adam is eleven or twelve years old and is in a regular classroom with the aid of Veatrice, his one on one helper who started with him when he was three. Adam has Autism and he is going to be entering middle school soon. He plays well with others but has a slight girl obsession and ironically enough they like him back. The people in his life love him and believe that “if he wasn’t Autistic, imagine the possibilities”. One outlet that Adam has is his music, his like of classical music and he plays the cello. Adam has many brothers and sisters but his father and mother have been through several struggles. His mother believed that Autism is like a locked room, and if you can crack the door open for even five minutes then that child is learning something new or developing for five minutes. “There is nothing he can’t do, I just have to find a way to teach it to him”.

Wyatt is an interesting character and probably the child that I was most interesting in from watching the movie. He came out in the beginning and said that he believed “100% of the kids are retarded” in his classroom. He is in a specialized class and he hates being there. Wyatt longs to be in a regular class but knows that the horrible bullying that he experiences will not subside no matter where he goes. He says that “bullies are mean and when they grow up they get meaner”. Wyatt has a section of the movie that really speaks to me, he discusses going into his own world. He talks about how kids he knows go into their own world sometimes and he wonders how they are supposed to make friends if they are always in their own space. But when asked when he, Wyatt, goes into his own world he replies, that when he is by himself, he likes being able to have someone to talk to, to have a friend, and to have someone to be there and care for him. Unfortunately he has a mixture of problems because he cannot hold his own in mainstream but is to high functioning for the other classes. When his parents meets with a lawyer to discuss how to help Wyatt they are confronted with the cost of over 50,000 to get schools to do the right things, to educate their son in a way in which he can learn. Schools aren’t helping him, they are not addressing his needs and no one has answers or solutions.