Is autism the worst thing that can happen to a person? Is ABA – Applied Behaviour Analysis – the right treatment for an autistic child? Should an autistic person get away with being rude? Do autistic individuals not feel empathy? If, as exists for unborn Downs Syndrome babies, a precise test is found to diagnose foetal autism, should the mother abort? Is it wrong, as some high-functioning autistic people claim, to try to ‘cure’ autism? Surely it is important to offer intervention to less able autistic children and adults, to help make their lives more bearable? These are some of the questions discussed in this passionate and informative memoir.
Virginia Bovell’s son Danny, now 31, was diagnosed with autism in 1996, aged three. (That year also, my son, then 13, was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.) Bovell is Nick Hornby’s first wife. They separated when Danny was five. In her account, Hornby was and is involved with his son. After a ‘lovely’ nanny left when Danny was two, Bovell gave up her job as social policy researcher at the LSE to dedicate herself to him.
Besides autism, Danny also had painful gastrointestinal problems, resulting in a lifelong series of excruciating medical interventions causing him – and his mother – great distress. After giving notice to her employer, she writes: ‘I felt that a tornado had lifted me up out of my previous life and into a new land.’ It is this new land, with all its complexities, that she evokes so eloquently.
I can relate to many situations she describes, although my son is articulate, whereas Danny is non-verbal. I sympathise when Bovell calls those who turn up to help parents of special needs children ‘angels’ and ‘saviours’.
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