Coloring Outside of the Lines

Last weekend we had the great pleasure of attending a performance of The Addams Family, a musical based on characters from the popular television series. The production was mounted by Boulder Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Theater for Kids. The cast was comprised of actors and singers ages 8-16.

Our 10 year-old grandson dazzled as Pugsley, but all lead and supporting characters were delightful.

Among them, a teen-aged boy who might be described as clearly “on the spectrum,” brought down the house while fully realizing the eccentric Uncle Fester. You needn’t know the Addams Family or Fester to appreciate the performance.

I don’t presume to know if this young man has a “diagnosis.” If he does, which seems likely, the “diagnosis” surely doesn’t limit his ability to learn his role, exude confidence and humor on stage, or understand the tender nuances of Fester’s love affair with the moon.

Tuesday morning the New York Times published a remarkable essay by Dr. Allen Frances, one of the task force members who revised the D.S.M. - IV ( the bible of psychiatry) to expand the breadth of autism diagnoses to include the symptomatically milder manifestations known as Asperger’s disorder. As the author notes, the name comes from Hans Asperger, who first noted the condition and was, unfortunately a Nazi collaborator. Best, I suggest, to stop using the term.

This expansion, Dr. Frances asserts, accounts for the 60x increase in autism diagnoses in the last 30 years. It has nothing to do with vaccines, fluoride in drinking water or any other cockamamie nonsense advanced by RFK, Jr. and his band of conspiracy theorists. A less dramatic, but significant, increase in ADHD diagnoses has also been experienced in recent decades.

In both cases, evidence suggests that children have not changed. The criteria for and demand for diagnoses has driven the so-called epidemics.

I’ve previously recalled a panel discussion during my school head days where several distinguished medical and psychological experts and I, token educator, presented the latest diagnostic criteria and treatment protocols for ADD and ADHD. It all sounded so very scientific.

To their unsuccessfully veiled irritation, I piped up to say that the problem was almost invariably the school, not the student. Medicating children to make them compliant with an unnatural environment was an unfortunate strategy.

Dr. Frances’s essay partially vindicated my dissent from the conventional view. He also authored a 2013 book titled, Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life.

I don’t dismiss the existence of conditions that make “normal” functioning very difficult, whether autism or severe attentional problems. Even then, the etiology and clinical criteria are often subjective and imprecise.

But aided by limitless Big Pharma greed and educational malpractice, the rich continuum of human characteristics has been squeezed into a false “norm.” Those who fall outside these tight brackets are pathologized, analyzed, ostracized and medicated.

As Dr. Frances notes, social media feeds the frenzy. In some circles there is even a cachet to earning a diagnosis, especially if special support is available or, in spectacular numbers, a diagnosis yields extra time on tests, including the SATs and other gatekeeping measures.

But most of all, the diagnosis and identification industries have allowed schools, policy makers and individual teachers to abdicate their responsibilities.

Fidgety kids are normal, but idiotic expectations punish their energy rather than celebrating it. Any educator worth her salt knows that children all learn differently, but rather than stretch to meet them, they allow them to be labeled as having a “learning difference.” Amazing what that slight semantic shift means in practice.

I’ve known students who appeared completely disengaged and yet absorbed every classroom subtlety while wandering on the periphery. Many of the most insightful and original kids I treasured were coloring outside the lines, literally and metaphorically, either because they didn’t see the lines or preferred to draw their own.

When we marginalize children in these ways we do them a great disservice. But we do ourselves a great disservice too.

Rocky Mountain Theater for Kids didn’t do this young man a favor by casting him in a major role. They did us a favor. Not only was his Fester brilliant, but he showed us what is there to see, if we only open our minds and hearts.