Transcript for Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder — Autism and Humanity

September 27, 2007

Krista Tippett, host: I'm Krista Tippett. Today, "Being Autistic and Being Human." My guests, Jennifer Elder and Paul Collins, a painter and a literary historian, are the parents of an eight-year-old son, Morgan, who has autism. We'll step back from controversies over autism causes and cures, and explore the mystery and meaning of autism in their family and in history and society. As Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder have discovered, autism is a spectrum that sheds light on human nature, intelligence, and accomplishment.






The term autism comes from the Greek word for self  autos  a condition in which a person seems quite literally to live in his or her own world. Two physicians described autism and gave it the same name nearly simultaneously in the mid-1940s, though they were an ocean apart. One of them was the Austrian Hans Asperger for whom a form of high-functioning autism, Asperger's syndrome, is named.

After their son Morgan was diagnosed, Jennifer Elder and Paul Collins found a vivid history of autism before it was identified as a unique condition. Jennifer, an artist, has authored two books for children and families. Paul, a literary historian, pursued the story of Dr. Asperger and other pioneers, as well as probable autistic figures like Peter the Wild Boy. This child, found living alone in a forest, was studied as the philosophers and scientists of the 18th century reflected on what it means to be human.

As Paul Collins puts it, autism entails both disability and ability. Isolating difficulties with human relationship, for example, can be the flipside of a fierce aptitude for logic and a capacity for intense independent focus. These personality traits run through families and society and underpin fields like engineering, art, and science. A doctor first suggested that Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder's son, Morgan, might have autism when he was two and a half, at a routine checkup. Until then, his normal was normal to them.

Mr. Paul Collins: We really had no basis of comparison because, for one thing, we'd been moving around a lot. So we didn't have a situation where we could watch someone else's child developing over the course of several years and actually notice that the  sort of the milestones were progressing really differently for other people's kids.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Ms. Elder: we used to joke that he was inscrutable because he would just look at you, you know, for a long time without sort of smiling or laughing. And, but we didn't know that was anything, you know, there was anything strange about it.



Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Mr. Collins: And so when I saw that some abilities were really coming along, I just assumed, 'Well, you know, he's a late talker.'

Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Mr. Collins: '... But, you know, he's doing so well in all these other things, so things must be going fine.' And not realizing, of course, that that's really one of the almost defining characteristics with autism that some abilities can actually become quite advanced.



Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.

Mr. Collins: That was something that really was kind of a turning point for me, too, which was that, you know, I think initially when we had the doctors saying, 'Well, you need to have him looked at for developmental delays,' it seemed like something had happened to our child.

Ms. Tippett: Right.





Ms. Tippett: Oh, gosh.


Ms. Tippett: OK.

Mr. Collins: which is all about social contact.


Mr. Collins: Yeah. And there's actually, musicians were very highly represented in particular, but also visual artists among these families that he was looking at. And the interesting thing about that for me is the first reaction a lot of people have when they hear his research is they'll say, 'Well, sure, my dad's an engineer.' I mean, in my case, my dad is an engineer.

Ms. Tippett: OK.

Mr. Collins: And my brother is finishing a Ph.D. in computer science. And so the reaction you have is, well, there's a little bit of shock initially because he's right. He pegged their professions pretty well.

Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: But at the same time, you think, 'Well, but they're not actually autistic.'

Ms. Tippett: Yeah.



Mr. Collins: Strangely enough, it was actually for my first book that it had come out the year before at that point, called Banvard's Folly, which was a book about sort of failed or forgotten inventors and artists. And so they brought me up to this, you know, discussion with their employees. And in the middle of all this, as they're inviting me up, all this started happening with Morgan, with his diagnosis. And so I asked them, 'Well, you know, while I'm up there, do you happen to have anyone working on autism-related issues?' Because I had heard rather a lot of whisperings among people that there was a, you know, a fairly major autism community

Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: in a lot of computing companies. And they said, 'Well, yes. We certainly do have a lot going on here in that regard.' For me, the strangest moment there, I was speaking I think primarily with the, what they described as the math wing of Microsoft. So they had a lot of people doing sort of theoretical mathematical work and working the algorithms and things like that. And I was addressing this room and all these people were working on their laptops as I was talking, even before I started talking.


Mr. Collins: Yeah, for the entire speech. And at first, I thought, 'Wow, these are really busy people.'

Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: And, but then I realized from some of the questions that they were then asking that they were, in fact, listening to me. And afterwards, I mentioned it to someone. And they said, 'Well, they were watching the webcast of you.' I was like, 15 feet away from some of these people. And she said, 'Well, that's just how they prefer to interact.' But, you know, I think, at one level, when you see something like that, you go, 'That's kind of strange.' But at the same time, I think it's also really great that we live in an age where people who may, you know, I think in the past probably wouldn't have gone to a lecture like that at all just because of all the social contact that it would've entailed, that in the past, it would've been just much too uncomfortable or, you know, kind of painful for them to deal with.



Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: And  you know, at the same time, it makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to deal with the highly illogical world of people.

Ms. Tippett: Yes.

Ms. Tippett: Paul Collins. You can read a moving essay by the late scientist Stephen Jay Gould about his son with autism at I'm Krista Tippett and this is Speaking of Faith from American Public Media, today exploring autism in one family's life and in human history and society with Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder. Their first son, Morgan, who has autism, is now 8 years old.


One of the classic characteristics of autism is what researchers call a lack of a theory of mind, an incomplete understanding that other people don't know what they know, don't want what they want. Therefore, Paul Collins points out words like believe and to think and know do not mean the same thing in an autistic vocabulary.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: And for him, it's really, you know, either he wants to interact or he doesn't. And there's, kind of no in-between.

Ms. Elder: You know, I've often explained it to people who aren't familiar with an autistic child that it's like somebody watching a video and you're trying to get their attention. But at the worst, they don't hear you at all or at best you're sort of bugging them and they try to swat you away.

Ms. Tippett: Right.



Ms. Elder: Yes.


Mr. Collins: Yes. And, and, I mean, that was one of the really strange moments for me, particularly when I saw Baron-Cohen's work, was recognizing these traits within myself. And that



Ms. Tippett: Right.



Ms. Tippett: Single-mindedness, yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Yes.

Ms. Elder: it can be difficult.

Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Mr. Collins: I actually understand.




Ms. Tippett: Right.



Mr. Collins: Yeah.



Ms. Tippett: Right.

Ms. Elder: It's something that seems very trivial to us and just as important as the Symphony Orchestra to Morgan.

Ms. Tippett: I see.


Ms. Tippett: Logos?


Ms. Tippett: Really?

Mr. Collins: Or the Universal opening that shows the revolving planet. And there's a whole community of people that are fascinated. People will put Ms. ELDER: There are hundreds of these posted on YouTube. And

Mr. Collins: Yeah. People compile, like histories of them into the videos. And they're passionate about it.


Mr. Collins: Another autistic boy.

Ms. Elder: Another autistic child, yeah.







Out of all of my conversations, this interview was one of the most difficult to edit. There was so much wide-ranging material to choose from, we had to leave out helpful stories about how Paul and Jennifer initiate contact with their son and interesting anecdotes about famous personalities like the comedians Andy Kaufman and Sacha Baron Cohen. But through our Web site,, and our podcast, you can download MP3s and listen to that two-hour, uninterrupted conversation and many more. That's at I'm Krista Tippett. Stay with us. Speaking of Faith comes to you from American Public Media.


Ms. Tippett: Welcome back to Speaking of Faith, public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. I'm Krista Tippett. Today, "Being Autistic and Being Human." My guests, Jennifer Elder and Paul Collins, are a painter and a literary historian and the parents of an eight-year-old son, Morgan, who has autism. In art and writing, they've also explored autism in historical, medical, and social perspective. In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control report that one in 150 children in the U.S. is now diagnosed on the spectrum of autism. This ranges from severe impairment to the high-functioning personality known by some as Asperger's Syndrome.

And an estimated 10 to 15 percent of people across the spectrum of autism exhibit extraordinary skills or talents often mathematical or artistic in nature. But they may be hindered from applying those productively because of interactive deficits, compulsive motor traits, and sensory sensitivities that also mark their lives.

(Sound bite of the Goldberg Variations)


(Sound bite of the Goldberg Variations)

Ms. Tippett: Again, Jennifer Elder and Paul Collins.

Mr. Collins: I think, for me, one of the most curious things to watch with Morgan has particularly been his interest in music, because there seem to be things with music that he just naturally seems to understand. I'm fairly sure he has perfect pitch.

Ms. Tippett: And that's quite common, isn't it?


Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: And they memorize them, don't they?


Ms. Tippett: Right. Right.



Mr. Collins: Oh. Right.

Ms. Elder: reasons they thought was because in the  these animations, the expressions of emotion are so strong and clear cut, you know.

Ms. Tippett: Stark. Yes.

Ms. Elder: There's not a lot of nuance.


Ms. Elder: Yeah. Yeah. If they're  they're either furious or afraid or, you know. And it's  there's not a lot of in-between. So autistic kids can watch it fairly comfortably knowing what's going on. There's no sort of  there's nothing subtle to pick up on.

Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm. I have also read somewhere that many autistic children are  feel they're kind of affinity with characters like Dr. Spock in Star Trek or  I wondered about Commander Data is one of my heroes

Ms. Elder: Absolutely.

Mr. Collins: Yes.

Ms. Tippett: in Stark Trek: The Next Generation. And, I mean, is that true of Morgan or other autistic children you know?

Ms. Elder: He's a little young for science fiction.

Ms. Tippett: OK.


Ms. Tippett: I know. I know, I know, it made me wonder too. Because  and there is in those characters, in Spock and Data, the brilliance and the kind of perplexity at  and in fact, how strange and complicated normal human beings are, right, with the range of emotions and interactions and what a mess that is sometimes.


Ms. Tippett: Yes.

Mr. Collins: You know, he has one foot in the human world, and the other one isn't. And he's trying to figure it out and trying to somehow reconcile this. And, yeah, that's one of the reasons that a lot of autistic people find him to be such a  sort of a sympathetic character because there  his situation kind of mirrors their own. They are very much part of our world and, you know, draw from it and actually help make a lot of the things in our world as well. And yet, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them. And particularly the social interactions are just  there is so much to social interactions that can't really be explained very logically. You just have to intuit them. And when you actually try to sit down and explain it to someone, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Ms. Tippett: Here's a scene with Spock that takes place around a campfire from the Star Trek movie, The Final Frontier.

Lt. Commander Spock: I believe we are required to engage in a ritual known as the sing-a-long.


Dr. Leonard McCoy: (Singing) Row, row, row your boat.

Captain Kirk: Row, row, row your boat. I love row  do you know row, row, row, row, row your boat?

Lt. Commander Spock: That song did not come up in my research, captain.

Captain James Kirk: The lyrics are very simple. The doctor and I will start it off. And then when we give you a signal, you jump in. (Singing) Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.

Dr. Leonard McCoy: (Singing) Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.

Captain James Kirk: (Singing) Merrily, merrily, merrily life is but  merrily, merrily, merrily life  come on, Spock. Why didn't you jump in?

Lt. Commander Spock: I was trying to comprehend the meaning of the words.

Dr. Leonard McCoy: It's a song, you green-blooded Vulcan. You sing it. The words aren't important. What's important is that you have a good time singing it.

Lt. Commander Spock: Oh, I am sorry, Doctor. Were we having a good time?

Ms. Tippett: I've had several conversations over the years about children as little philosophers and little theologians, you know, that in childhood, we start asking these great existential questions  Where did we come from? Is there a god? If there's a god, who made god?  you know? And also ethical questions like, why do people hurt each other? And I wondered, do you experience those kinds of questions, that kind of side to Morgan?

Ms. Elder: Now, I'm not sure how abstractly he thinks about these things. You know, my feeling  and I won't speak for Paul since we have different feelings on this  but I feel that we all come into this world with a sort of immediate natural relationship with God. And so that for Morgan, he has that, you know, that's just the way it's always been for him. He has that relationship and it's unaffected by whatever society has to say about it. But I think that we have to introduce ideas of ethics to him, because this sort of thing just simply doesn't occur to him. He's certainly not cruel.

Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: Right. So I suppose if he's not  he can't really  he's perplexed by other people's reactions. Then I suppose, part of being kind or compassionate is about  would be such a complicated interaction, kind of beyond the way he  the way he  his mind works.

Ms. Elder: Absolutely. I don't think it's impossible for him. I just think that it needs to be taught because it doesn't come to him immediately the way it might come to us.


Ms. Tippett: Right.

Mr. Collins: or callous sense of, but just that  I think it really doesn't occur to him. And that issue of empathy is a very difficult one, I think, for a lot of autistic people because I think for those, particularly not familiar with them, it may seem kind of pointedly callous, when in fact it's, I think, it kind of comes down to a lack of understanding of the situation a lot of the time. And they don't see the point in it.

Ms. Tippett: So, I mean, Jennifer, when you say that you believe that he  that we all come into the world with a relationship with God, but with Morgan, is that just more something that you intuit? I suppose, because he doesn't talk about things the way non-autistic people talk about things. Is that what you're saying? It's just something you believe?

Ms. Elder: Yes. Absolutely. That's right. And, you know, he doesn't speak very abstractly about anything. And the  those sort of window into his soul that we have is usually through a sort of a code that's based on the books and videos that he consumes. So he often somehow puts together phrases and characters from books to express something. And of course, nothing's coming to mind right now as I say that. But, you know, he will express something by way of mentioning, you know, 'The Cat in the Hat feels sad.'

Ms. Tippett: Oh. OK.


Mr. Collins: I think that human interactions are much too fleeting for him to have a chance to interpret them. Whereas he'll read a book over and over again, or watch a scene in a video over and over again and can really try to figure it out. Or at least, kind of memorize it as almost to kind of a script for dealing with the world in a way that, yeah, that  in-person interactions, they're not repeatable in a consistent manner for him. So it's very difficult for him to figure them out.

Ms. Tippett: Kind of makes you think that 21st century is not a bad time to be born as an autistic person with all these rich world of media that we have.

Ms. Elder: Absolutely.

Mr. Collins: Oh, yeah.

Ms. Elder: I have no idea what autistic people  how they spent their time before the computer.




Ms. Tippett: Jennifer, you also have this book Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes, and it includes, you know, people like Albert Einstein and female mathematicians I've never heard of, and the first  was it the first African-American scientist and


Ms. Tippett: Yeah. I mean, some of them, I mean Temple Grandin is in there. And there are those amazing stories in this category of savants, which is associated with autism, and that is so fascinating. And, you know  but then, what I also know is that all autistic children are not gifted and there's some new research about girls in particular  autistic girls that they have higher rates of depression and suicide and not necessarily these skill sets that autistic boys often have.

Ms. Elder: Right. And that is something that, you know, Paul and I have sort of spoken of this openly and Paul wrote about it. But Morgan does take antidepressants. And we feel like when he was first diagnosed we resisted medicating him. And many of the other children that we knew, autistic children, were medicated. But there came a point for him after we made a move across country where he just became very distressed and couldn't function and

Mr. Collins: And actually been kind of building up for awhile as he got older. He became more and more sensitive to things that frustrated him in the outside world and more and more over stimulated by them, and really didn't know how to handle them, and would get very upset about it. And the move really brought that to a head. And so, at that point, it actually wasn't a difficult decision because we also had a small child, and Morgan would be thrashing around. And so there was a real physical danger at that point.

Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.


And as it is, that's still a situation that a lot of parents find themselves brought to where they have an autistic child. Yeah. You sort of bringing this up earlier that not all autistic children are going be these wonderful prodigies and sort of miracle stories

Ms. Tippett: Right. Composing music and solving

Mr. Collins: Right.

Ms. Tippett: complex mathematical equations, and  yes. When you talked about Morgan as a toddler, you called him, you know, he was really happy and playful, right, he may not have been communicating

Mr. Collins: Yeah.

Ms. Tippett: in the way some children his age were. But would you still describe him as happy and playful at 8 and a half?

Ms. Elder: Yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Right.


Ms. Tippett: Yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Right.

Ms. Elder: not encouraged to think of that way.


Ms. Elder: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mr. Collins: Right.

Ms. Tippett: Yeah. I was really struck by these lines, Paul, in your book, as you  I think along the lines we've been speaking, so Isaac Newton was another person in Jennifer's book, completely single-minded person who happened to be focusing, as you say, on something other people found important.

Mr. Collins: Right.

Ms. Tippett: And you said there are Newtons of refrigerator parts, and Newtons of painted light bulbs, and Newtons of train schedules, and Isaac Newton happened to be the Newton of Newtonian physics and you cannot have him without having the others too.

Mr. Collins: Yeah. And I think that's  I mean, there's two things that brings to mind, actually. I was in Italy not too long ago. For some reason, the book has actually been really popular over there. And a journalist there asked me, 'What if we were able to do genetic screening for autism?' And I said, 'Well, that's actually a really difficult question because what are you prepared to lose?'

Ms. Tippett: Yeah.


Ms. Tippett: Yes. I mean, how does living with Morgan and the way you've had to think about autism  how does that change the way you think about some of these great existential questions or, you know, what it means to be human? How does it change the way you live  think about yourself?

Mr. Collins: I think I've become  I would hope, at least, much more patient and empathetic with other people when they're acting in ways that I don't understand. I think that in the past when someone seemed to be acting oddly or seemed to be sort of very socially awkward or just doing things that seems kind of unnerving or didn't make sense to me, I would think, 'Well, what's that guy's problem?' and, you know, maybe avoid them. That's, I think, a natural reaction for anyone to have.

Ms. Tippett: Yes.

Mr. Collins: But at the same time, when I see that now, I actually find myself asking that as a genuine question. 'What is that person contending with, you know? Or what is it like for that person?'


Ms. Tippett: The Goodwill  the store the

Ms. Elder: Yes.

Mr. Collins: Yeah.

Ms. Tippett: Uh-huh.


Ms. Tippett: OK.

Ms. Elder: And Morgan will ask for the Goodwill. And we love to take him there because it's  I never would've thought of this before Morgan, but it's a place that's very friendly to people with disabilities. And when I'm there, I often see other people with developmental disabilities and people who I might not have noticed before, and now I do. Now I think about

Mr. Collins: Yeah.

Ms. Elder: you know, how to make their world as comfortable as possible. And that's just a place where they can be, you know, that's comfortable and accepting, and you really do when you're there. You feel like you're part of a community even if you've never seen, you know, if it's a store full of strangers to you that I  it gives me another perspective on interacting with people who might be invisible otherwise.

Ms. Tippett: Jennifer Elder is the author of two illustrated books for children and families, Different Like Me: My Book of Autism Heroes and, most recently, Autistic Planet. She works as a special education aid for the Portland Public Schools. Paul Collins' book about autism is Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. He edits the Collins Library for McSweeney's books and is an assistant professor of English at Portland State University.

In many ways, our radio program is just the beginning. At our Web site, we're making our material more accessible and more portable. You can download MP3s of this program and others in different ways through our Web site, our podcast, and our weekly e-mail newsletter. And listen to my entire wide-ranging conversation with Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder. Here's your chance to hear what was cut to make this an hour of radio. Participate in the ongoing conversation at

These days it seems that everyone from media, like us, to dinner tables, maybe like yours, is talking about sustainability. How do you fit in? Play our new game to find out what the world might look like if everyone lived your lifestyle. You'll find it at our Web site Click on Consumer Consequences.

The senior producer of Speaking of Faith is Mitch Hanley with producers Colleen Scheck and Jody Abramson. Our online editor is Trent Gilliss with assistance from Randy Karels. Special thanks this week to Dr. Andrea Bieberich, Dr. Barbara Luskin, and Dr. Sam Morgan. Bill Buzenberg is our consulting editor, Kate Moos is the managing producer of Speaking of Faith, and I'm Krista Tippett.

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