TV: Living when life just doesn't make sense

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Anyone who has ever felt slightly awkward in a social setting doesn't even come close.

You get a vague idea from the movie Rain Man, when Tom Cruise found his autistic brother Dustin Hoffman's eccentricities hard to understand, let alone deal with.

We in New Zealand have only an inkling of how hard it can be for parents to cope with severely autistic children.

It was brought to our attention in the tragic case of Janine Albury-Thomson who, in desperation, killed her autistic and often violent daughter Casey two years ago and was found guilty of manslaughter.

Documentary New Zealand: Autism - Life Amongst Strangers (TV One, 8.30 pm, tonight) gives a rare look at what it is like to be autistic and to be the parent of an autistic child.

This fascinating documentary will take you on a trip into what for many of us is another world. It goes into the minds of people who feel they are from another planet.

You will meet Harold, an adult with Asperger's syndrome, a milder form of autism.

He is brilliant but has lived most of his life trying to figure out what was going on. He speaks coherently to the camera of what must be a lonely world at times, maybe most of the time.

"It's when people talk with their eyes to each other that I'm shut out."

Only later in life has he connected with thoughts and emotions.

The documentary relies on a straight-forward and informative narrative which fills in the gaps not explained by the subjects.

Autism, says the narrator, makes you understand and experience the world in a different way.

Sight, sound, taste and sense don't make sense.

It's like being in a different land, where you don't speak the language and don't understand the culture.

It's stressful for them and stressful for parents to come to terms with seeing their young children change from "normal" into withdrawn, silent strangers who adopt bizarre, ritualistic behaviours.

Young Dale stopped talking to his parents and started doing things like running round the house, opening and shutting doors for hours, and turning lights on and off, over and over.

To his mum it was unbelievable and in the past Dale and others like him would have been put in an institution.

Some children are violent and throw tantrums, in frustration and depression at not understanding the bewildering world around them.

With time has come a better understanding of the condition, partly thanks to an American autistic woman, Dr Temple Grandin, from eastern Colorado, who was filmed while in New Zealand giving a seminar to parents.

She is a world expert in the design of cattle-handling equipment - and a "superstar" in the world of autism.

Her articulate explanation of her transformation from a withdrawn child who rocked back and forth to shut out the world, to the jet-set traveller she is now is an incredible journey.

She lives her life ruled by logic, not emotion. She says she finds emotion boring to talk about.

Grandin believes the earlier the diagnosis for children, the better. After diagnosis children should be taught "brain-tuning" so they know how to tune in to our world for a time.

The documentary shows that with patience and love miraculous steps can be made.

Young Dale now likes to cuddle and even likes to do a few things with his dad.

And Harold marries an autistic woman. He finally has found someone who understands him and who he thinks is "lovely."

But he won't kiss the bride. It's a strange world beyond our comprehension, and theirs, but for us, this documentary makes it easier to get a glimpse of what their world is like.