Autism, Police Officers, and a Little Zen?

Last week I picked up a book some of my students have been raving about. It's called Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, and is subtitled The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's a fascinating premise. His opening chapter introduces us to the J. Paul Getty Museum and their investigation and subsequent purchase of an ancient marble statute called the kouroi. It was estimated to be from the sixth century B.C. and, if authentic, would be worth millions of dollars. The opening chapter is riveting. It absolutely hooked me.

After the opening chapter I found the work quite compelling, but not nearly as much fun as the opening investigation. That is until his chapter entitled "Seven Seconds in the Bronx." The chapter begins with four New York City police officers horrifically shooting to death an unarmed and innocent citizen. Gladwell investigates these seven seconds all the while weaving the lessons of autism into his analysis.

Over the past several years the amount of students who have autism entering my classroom has swooned. I work in a wealthy, suburban school district, one that has enough financial resources to provide mainstream opportunities for most of its students. We have a full-time instructor and several aides working with a growing population of children with autism. These students are part of a continuum in which some are severely autistic and others fall into the high functioning Asperger's Disorder.

This year I had a student, George*, in my classroom. He did well in class. He was very conscientious, motivated, polite, and responsible. He got good grades. And he was quite autistic. Although I have taught students with autism before, I had never quite developed the relationship that I did with George.

I have been told many times that students with autism don't understand emotions. They can give a definition of anger, but they seldom can recognize it in someone else, and find it especially difficult to notice while reading literature. In my 10th grade English Survey class George could provide all the facts of the story, some seemingly meaningless ones that most other readers ignored and skipped right over. But his ability to recognize and understand satire, symbolism, irony, or theme were nearly impossible. He could easily provide definitions and examples that were discussed, but there is no way he had the intellectual make-up to dig deeply, or to make connections into those fictional manners.

At times I was uncomfortable with George's eye-contact. When he asked a question, he stared intensely, and stayed locked in until he was able to release. I learned some clues I could use to let him know I was finished, but mostly George stayed focused on his task at hand: listening to what I was saying. Intellectually I knew that it had something to do with his autism, but emotionally it could be disarming. Our relationship however did grow, and we were able to make some progress throughout the school year. I grew to enjoy his presence and his dedication.

But it wasn't until I read Gladwell's chapter on "Seven Seconds in the Bronx" that I came to understand and see things with a bit more clarity. It was in this chapter that I developed a picture as to what it means to not understand emotions. Gladwell summarizes British psychologist and autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen's idea that people with autism are "mind-blind (214)." Baron-Cohen says that a person with autism has virtually no ability to read non-verbal clues and cannot read other people's minds. Because these two aspects of communication make no sense to a person with autism, they can only take the words at face value. Only the literal meaning matters.

Gladwell then describes the work of Yale University's Ami Klin, one of our nation's leading experts in autism research. Klin describes his long term patient as one that "focuses very much on what I say. The words mean a great deal to him. But he doesn't focus at all on the way my words are contextualized with facial expressions and non-verbal clues (215)." I often wondered why George stared at me so intently. It was because he needed my words. He didn't need the smile, the big-eyes, the slight tap on the shoulder...those gestures meant nothing to him. What he needed was me saying clearly and repeatedly what I wanted him to get out of the lesson or for me to describe slowly and completely the homework assignment, or for me to say, that is all.

Remembering this in our own life could be wonderfully beneficial. Is it even possible to perceive how much we utilize non-verbal clues to successfully understand and comprehend the conversation we are a part of? When my wife is frustrated with me she does not need to say a word; I can tell by her posture and her look that we need to discuss the moment at hand. My teenage daughter has a look that says so clearly "my goodness dad, you are so (early) 1980's." And my five year old daughter has already developed a look that tells her mom and me that she didn't like the answer we gave her. And yet we are not taught any of this. By simply being human we learn the nature of body language and the power of facial expressions. We learn to use it ourselves and we absolutely learn to read it in others. We take our ability to mind-read for granted, not having any clue as to how important this skill/behavior is to us understanding, interpreting, and interacting with the world around us. If we suddenly lost the ability to interpret body language it would be devastating.

So what does all this have to do with four police officers, in about 2.5 seconds, shooting 41 bullets into an innocent man? This is where it gets interesting. Police organizations today are continually trying to establish proper procedure, not only as a safety measure for the community, but also as one for themselves. Maintaining the ability to "mind-read" throughout a critical conflict is essential to avoid mistakes. All police officers, all humans, come to the table with built-in prejudices. Although we often will not acknowledge our own biases, when in stressful situations we will turn towards our most basic instincts. If you live in American society, you have undoubtedly been inundated with the seductions of bias. We, like police officers, must train ourselves to combat those prejudices and those subconscious instincts. Teaching, learning, and practicing proper procedure can eliminate mind-reading. Learning to slow down and breath and practicing to observe rather than judge can help all of us stay wide-awake. The lesson of those police officers is that they reacted on bias and not on reflection. They saw a situation, read it to be something it wasn't, yet something they had seen before, and reacted. The wrong way. They misread the victim's body language and actions. Instead of the police officers seeing a scared and cowering citizen handing over his wallet they saw one that was running away from them, hiding, and pulling a gun.

Gladwell's argument is not meant to justify that because these police officers were under high stress that they are without responsibility and guilt. Neither does he say that they were completely irresponsible and therefore guilty. Instead he simply shows how it did and can happen. How it might not happen. He then shares a veteran police officer's story about staying clear and focused, about breathing and slowing down, about making the right decision.

A simple lesson ... maybe ... pay attention ... stay in the moment!

It's about clarity.

* Name changed