In his memoir Life, Animated, Ron Suskind recounts raising a son, Owen, who was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. In a review of the book, Rachel Adams describes how the family stumbled into a surprising form of therapy:
The only time Owen seems calm and relaxed is while he’s watching Disney videos. One afternoon, there is a breakthrough. The entire family is watching The Little Mermaid when they make an exciting discovery: the seemingly meaningless phrase Owen has been muttering for the past few weeks, which sounds to them like “juicervose,” is actually a stanza from the film’s last song, “just your voice.” Some of Owen’s therapists dismiss his vocalizations as echolalia, an autistic tendency to repeat sounds without understanding. But the Suskinds are convinced that Owen’s words represent a genuine effort at communication. Soon after the “juicervose” episode the family visits Disney World, where Owen is transformed. Surrounded by beloved characters and themes, he is more focused and receptive than he has been since the onset of his symptoms. The Suskinds become convinced that Disney may be the key to recovering their son’s ability to express himself.
Back in April, Hanna Rosin talked to the Suskinds and Dan Griffin, Owen’s therapist, about how the Disney treatment took hold:
Ron: I came up with the idea of having him use the voice of the sidekicks to solve the problem for a boy like Owen. Dan immediately got it. He gets up real close and says, “Let’s say there’s a boy like you. He’s a little different. He’s struggling and going through tough times and he wants to go backwards.” And without skipping a beat, Owen says, “I would prefer Merlin,” and starts doing this whole riff as Merlin about how he turned Arthur into a fish, and remember, the more you swim, the more you’ll learn, and on and on. And Dan looked at me with a “that’s not in the movie” look. And that’s when we realized he could improvise on cue and use the characters to tap into his inner voice and tell us what was really going on. He ended up in this strange middle ground between the movies and his life, and Dan and I could get into that space and shape it and guide it. …
His internal voice became external and we could hear it and shape it. It was like he felt relief, that he had found a way to talk to himself. That was the moment he started to self-heal.
Read an excerpt from Life, Animated here. Earlier Dish on Suskinds’ book here.
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