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ASPERGER'S SYNDROME: A SPECIAL REPORT (Part Two of Two)
Broadcast starting week of September 19, 2007

Click here to hear "Asperger's Syndrome: A Special Report (Part One of Two)

In one of our most important programs to date, this second of a two-part special report on Asperger’s Syndrome offers a groundbreaking and extraordinary look at Asperger's in children and young adults. We meet Anders, a 17-year-old boy with Asperger’s, and his mother Carol, who talks about her surprise when Anders suddenly began speaking like a professor and using four-syllable words.  We also speak with film producer Robert Lawrence, about his forthcoming film, Mozart and the Whale, starring Josh Hartnett and co-written by "Rain Man" screenwriter Ron Bass, which tells the tale of Donald and Isabelle, two "Aspies in love." Dr. Stanley Greenspan, founder of the DIR/Floortime approach, explains how children with autistic disorders can significantly build their capacity for emotional understanding and interpersonal connections through intensive play. Dr. Richard Howlin, a psychologist who works with teens with Asperger's, talks about the special challenges it poses with family, school, peers and especially dating.  Finally, summing up the two-part series is commentator and visionary Howard Bloom, who reaches back to his childhood in Buffalo, and even further back to the dawn of man, to examine the lessons each of us can glean from our own handicaps and weaknesses.

Anders is a 17-year-old boy with Asperger’s, provides an extraordinary window on the experience of living with the disorder. He explains it isn’t easy growing up among peers who aren’t really peers. Friendships are fragile, but truth is absolute. But as his mother Carol says, it isn’t easy living with an Asperger’s child, either. When the kid is struggling with all of his teachers and can’t understand how other people think and feel, she can only look to the future, when her son might be able to happily connect with other people in a wider world.

Next up, we hear from Dr. Stanley Greenspan, an American pioneer in autism research and treatment. A co-founder of the Floortime Foundation and a infant and child therapy technique called D.I.R. (Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship-based)/Floortime, Dr. Greenspan explains that children with Asperger's and other forms of autism appear to have skipped important developmental steps related to emotional signaling. The Floortime approach works with parents and clinicians to ascertain which of these important building blocks need to be supported and modeled so that the child learns to relate to others from within. This is a "monumental" change from behavioral therapies that teach scripts or drill children in rote responses. Those therapies are likely to make an already mechanistic child even more so, Greenspan says.

To learn more about Dr. Greenspan and his work, please visit the Floortime Foundation web site at floortimefoundation.org

After the break, The Infinite Mind's Jackson Braider speaks with Robert Lawrence, a Hollywood producer who’s been involved with such hit films as Die Hard with a Vengeance, Clueless, and Rain Man. In a forthcoming film, "Mozart and the Whale," Lawrence will introduce general audiences to Donald and Isabelle, two people with Asperger’s who meet and fall in love. The movie, directed by the Norwegian filmmaker Petter Naess, is based on the true story of Jerry Newport and his wife Mary.

Next, we meet Dr. Richard Howlin, a psychologist with the Asperger Society of Michigan. Dr. Howlin specializes in the treatment of young adults and adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome. He explains how Asperger’s amplifies many of the issues of adolescence, and how adolescence, in turn, amplifies especially the problems of peer relations prevalent among teenagers with Asperger’s. He discusses problems that are common in school, at home, with peers and in romance. Dr. Howlin is joined by Anders, the teenager featured at the top of the show. Anders explains his interests and his plans to become a professor of history.

The show concludes with a commentary by Howard Bloom. From ancient history to the present day, the greatest advances of humankind have come out of our weakness. There is understandable ambivalence about how we think and feel about a diagnosis of Asperger’s, but as Bloom reminds us, in time, our handicaps become our gifts.

Heard on this week's program:

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