Neurotypical

---

Next on "P

[Girl cooing]

Mama!

MAN:
There was a cartoon

when I was young called

"Jungle Book."

I'm sure you've

heard of it -- Disney.

Now, at the end,

Mowgli...

goes off with the men,

with the fire.

And he leaves the...

the jungle.

And I remember watching it,

and the lights

were down real low,

and I remember

I cried my eyes out.

Now, I wasn't one given

to cry much,

I mean, not about movies,

but this one made me cry.

And I was like,

"No, don't leave!

Don't go with the men!

Trust me, I mean it!

I know how horrible it is.

You do not want to," you know.

I didn't know y'all as

"neurotypicals" back then,

but you did not want to come

into society.

Trust me, it's not all

it's cracked up to be.

Not because

I hated society,

but because I thought

I knew enough

to tell them, "Oh, I wouldn't

have made that decision."

You know, I had been

abused and hurt so much by

people trying to make me normal,

that if, you know, if you went

with them,

I was like, "Oh, gosh,

they're going to be

trying to make you normal."

And that just would have --

for me, everybody else saw that

as a good thing.

I saw it as the saddest movie

I'd ever seen.

[Laughing]

MAN:
All right, we're going to

get going, Violet, let's go.

GIRL:
Let's go, let's go,

let's go, let's go!

MAN:
Time to go home.

GIRL:
Come on, come on!

Come on, come on!

[Crying, screeching]

Daddy, no!

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Aagh!

Ow!

[Crying]

MAN:
Okay.

Okay.

GIRL:
Daddy, no!

Daddy!

[Girl shrieking]

Time to go.

Stand up.

[Girl shrieking]

Stand up.

GIRL:
Dad, no!

Okay.

[Girl crying]

It's okay, it's okay.

[Girl coughing]

All right.

MAN:
Everything I did between

one and eight...

was basic,

almost direct prompting.

If you prompted me to do

something, I would do it.

I was really big in mimicking.

So if you showed me how

to do something,

you know, if you sat there

and you did this,

I'd do the exact same thing.

Now, it doesn't -- so that

if you didn't do this,

this part wasn't

gonna get clean.

Before eight,

there was no database.

So you could teach me

something,

but I didn't have

a place to store it.

It wasn't until I failed

third grade

that I realized you have to

store this stuff,

because when

they teach it to you,

they expect you to be able to

pull it back up.

[Cartoon sound effects]

[Elmo talking on television]

Oh, whoa!

Ah, ah, ah!

Oh, oh, oh!

Oh, yeah!

[Humming]

Try again, Mr. Noodle!

Try again.

Oh, oh!

CHILD ON TV:

Try again, Mr. Noodle.

ELMO:
Try again.

WOMAN:
Just because

you can't speak

the way we're

speaking right now,

it doesn't mean you're

not thinking

and that you don't have ideas

and opinions.

We get so fixated, I think,

on hitting that median,

hitting that main number.

Most kids do "X" by this age.

And if your kid doesn't

do it by that age,

there's so much anxiety

and so much worry.

I don't want to paint

this rosy picture

that just because we are very

accepting of Violet

and just because

she has her good days

and she has amazing qualities

as a human being, it doesn't

mean things are always perfect

or that we always

stay patient --

we try really hard.

We've all lost our cool

at some point or another.

I mean, what parent doesn't,

at some point, go,

"Aagh!

Why won't you just listen?!"

You know, and it's frustrating.

MAN:
Here, wash your hands.

WOMAN:
We didn't care if she was

autistic or not,

so why bother getting

a diagnosis,

because that's just going to

put a big stamp on her --

"autistic."

People are going

to write her off,

people are going to

underestimate her,

they're going to put her in

a little pigeonhole

of like, "Okay, you're autistic,

so this is your capacity.

And here's the regular kid,

and there's their capacity."

MAN:
All right, civilization!

I came from an educated,

middle-class black family.

And we knew that education was

the way out of poverty,

and it was the way into success.

So when I failed third grade,

it was the biggest scandal

I'd ever seen.

And my grandmother went down to

University of Maryland Hospital,

and she basically told

those doctors,

"You are going to tell me

why my son failed.

What is wrong with him?"

And she knew that there was

something wrong.

My grandmother,

my great-grandmother --

everybody in the family said,

"There's something wrong

with this kid."

And three doctors came

downstairs.

And they sat there, and they

pored over

my notes and everything,

and they said, "Well,

we think it's autism."

And they said, "Well,

you have two choices.

You can put him in a hospital,

but you seem like you've got him

pretty far along.

I would suggest

whatever it is you're doing,

continue doing it."

And meanwhile, another doctor

told me what I had.

And he said, "How did you

get this far,

because you're really

remarkable?"

And I was like, "First time

I ever heard this."

And I told him, I said,

"I have systems.

Systems for everything."

And he says, "Well, keep

building the systems."

And in the room, I could hear

my grandmother crying.

Up until that time,

I had never heard her cry.

And I was mad.

I was gonna go in there and tear

somebody's head off.

But then this great big,

fat doctor --

I'll never forget him --

he was tall and he was fat.

And he walked over to my

grandmother, and he said,

"Mom," 'cause he didn't know

my mother's name.

He said, "Mom, I want you to

continue and encourage your son

in building these systems.

This is how he understands

the world,

so you're gonna have to

encourage him."

He says, "Now, Wolf,

I want you to

continue to build

the systems."

He says, "Now, Mom, when his

systems go outside

of society's norms,

I want you to tell him

so he can, you know,

chop that piece off.

And keep him inside

of the norms.

And, Wolf, when she tells you

to take a piece apart,

or take it apart, take it apart

and rebuild it."

He said, "And keep rebuilding it

until you can rebuild it

into something that works

in this society."

And I've been doing that

ever since.

What's this?

What's that?

-Four!

-What's that?

GIRL:
Seven.

-What's that?

-Five.

-What's that?

-Nine.

-What's that?

-Six.

-What's that?

-Two.

-What's that?

-Three.

-What's that?

-Eight!

-What's that?

-One.

High five!

Yes!

[Laughing]

[Woman inhales]

[Exhales]

[Girl inhales]

[Woman inhales]

Boo!

[Girl shrieks, giggles]

[Playing somber tune]

We're kind of whittling it down

to the ideal for her,

of like no dairy and all.

Something to help her rigidity

and just being really open

and not treating her like

she has a disability.

WOMAN:
The medication was a huge

decision, too.

We thought about that

for months.

Are we gonna put our

three-year-old

on antidepressants?

It just seemed crazy.

MAN:
There's an element of not

being able

to go back after that.

That's what I was always

worried about,

is that, okay, we're going to

put her on this,

and is there any turning back?

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