FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER
Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org
January 28, 2002
News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp
Two Contrasting Reviews of New ‘Autism Movie’:
·
Despite Being a Cry Fest, ‘I Am Sam’ Is Sunny
·
Sean Penn Is An Emotional Mess - And So Is This Movie
·
Disabled Sue California To Live In Community Homes
·
Autistic Adults Locked Up After False Diagnosis
·
Reader’s Posts
[By Bruce Westbrook in the Houston Chronicle.]
http://199.97.97.16/contWriter/endmoviesrev/2002/01/24/enter/4527-0035-pat_n
ytimes.html
In the legal drama “I Am Sam,” friends of the title
character often note film parallels to their daily lives.
Fittingly, they include “Kramer vs. Kramer.” Oddly, they
don’t mention “Rain Man.”
Perhaps that would be too pointed, for “I Am Sam” is a
blend of Kramer’s tearful custody fight and “Rain Man’s” depiction of a lovable
autistic. Dustin Hoffman starred in both films, winning an Oscar for each.
Now it’s Sean Penn’s turn. He’s been nominated twice but
hasn’t won, and he’s sensational as Sam, a retarded man with autistic
tendencies.
Kind, innocent, earnest and sincere, the 30-something Sam
works hard as a busboy in a Los Angeles Starbucks, carefully arranging
sweetener packets just so. He also adores ritualized dates with friends
(Wednesdays are IHOP or die) and succumbs to emotional extremes, from unchecked
exuberance to childlike tantrums.
But his biggest emotion is love - for his adorable
daughter, Lucy (Dakota Fanning).
Her mom, a homeless woman, fled soon after Lucy was born.
Being a big Beatles fan, Sam names the girl Lucy and, with a little help from
his friends, raises her until she’s 7.
That’s when trouble starts.
Sam’s mental ceiling is that of a 7-year-old, but Lucy’s
as sharp as a
diamond. When she holds herself back so dad won’t seem dumb,
her teachers balk. When that problem is coupled with some ill-timed public
stumbles by Sam, authorities place Lucy with foster parents.
That sparks a custody fight Sam can’t afford. Yet he tries
to hire a firebrand lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer) at a prestigious firm. Rita’s
legal success belies a dying marriage and a chilled relationship with her neglected
son.
Taking Sam’s case pro bono after being shamed by
colleagues, Rita learns she needs Sam’s loving spirit as much as he needs her
legal knowledge.
The message: We’re all flawed, since we’re all human. Let’s
not rush to judgment.
Rita is Pfeiffer’s best role in years, and Pfeiffer holds
her own beside Penn. Her character arc is predictable yet satisfying. Hollywood
is full of hard-nosed careerists with kids raised by nannies, and studios love making
redemptive, stripe-changing movies.
“I Am Sam” pushes such buttons to the max. It’s a
four-hankie yet feel-good film about a parent-child bond beset by a misguided
society.
Disappearing into his role, Penn is a study in endearing
quirks and heart-rending devotion. He’s cast against tough type as the sweet
child-man, but that’s why we call him an actor.
Dianne Wiest also is good as Sam’s kind, agoraphobic
neighbor, and Laura Dern shines as the conflicted foster mom.
The cast’s who’s who extends to tiny roles. Mary
Steenburgen plays a court witness in one scene, and in another, Houston’s Brent
Spiner is a shoe salesman. The West Wing’s Richard Schiff is Rita’s legal
adversary, while Scrubs’ Ken Jenkins plays the judge.
“I Am Sam” also is buoyed by many fine, folksy Beatles
covers by Sheryl Crow, Michael Penn, Sarah McLachlan and others. From “Two of
Us” to “I’m Looking Through You,” each strikes the right emotional chord.
Filled with dogs, balloons, hugs and handsome production
values, “I Am Sam” is sunny for such a cry fest.
The movie’s magic is that we feel more rewarded than
manipulated. Jessie Nelson, who
co-wrote with Kristine Johnson, directs evenhandedly and doesn’t wallow in woe.
Unlike Stepmom, another tear-jerker co-written by Nelson, “I
Am Sam” doesn’t trade in punched-up pathos as much as understanding and truth.
Rita pinpoints one such truth in court, arguing, “One’s
intellectual capacity has no bearing on one’s ability to love.”
For dramatic purposes, such persuasion must go beyond
logic. Leave it to Lucy, who soothes her dad’s despair in one dark hour by
softly saying, “All you need is love.”
Case closed. We melted to mush right there.
Sure, it’s a simplistic view. Sam needs a better
support system to win
Lucy back. But even if love isn’t all they need, as this
warm and wise film shows, it’s clearly the best place to start.
* * *
[By Christopher Kelly in the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram.]
http://199.97.97.16/contWriter/endmoviesrev/2002/01/25/enter/5473-0085-pat_n
ytimes.html
From its opening images of Starbucks, Starbucks and more
Starbucks, “I Am Sam” is a very special kind of bad movie: One that should be
booed right off the screen.
The wall-to-wall product placements (Pizza Hut also
deserves above-the title billing) are bad enough. But what “I Am Sam” is really
selling is slick and meaningless “uplift.” This is a movie that believes the
mentally disabled are good for only three things: to make the rest of us laugh,
cry and feel good about not being mentally disabled.
How does one even begin to catalog this movie’s awfulness?
Sean Penn plays Sam, a coffee-shop worker who is mentally retarded and left to
raise a child alone (the mother is a homeless woman, who runs off shortly after
giving birth). Flash forward seven years and Sam has magically raised a perfectly
precocious blond-haired angel named Lucy (Dakota Fanning). How did he manage to
do such a great job? With the help of a cute-and-cuddly gang of mentally
disabled buddies that the movie periodically trots out to make us giggle.
But wait, those child-welfare meanies want to take Lucy
away from Sam. They say he’s an unfit
father. Enter Michelle Pfeiffer as his too-busy lawyer who takes Sam’s case pro
bono to prove to her friends she’s willing to do pro bono work. (Who says they
don’t make movies with complicated motivations anymore?) The movie then
devolves into a series of melodramatic meltdowns and courtroom showdowns -
including a surprise appearance by a kooky agorophobe (Dianne Wiest) and
complete with Pfeiffer learning that there’s more to life than fast cars and
fat paychecks.
The lead performances are odious. Penn is an overly
emotive embarrassment - “Rain Man” meets “Shine” meets “I Am Sean Penn and I
Really Want an Oscar.” Pfeiffer walks through the movie on tough-as-nails-career-gal
autopilot. Then again, probably no one could have given a good performance with
director Jessie Nelson jerking the camera around and zooming into the actor’s
faces every three seconds. It’s as if she’s afraid to give the audience even a
moment of quiet contemplation.
But the movie has deeper ideological problems - namely the
manner in which it condescends to Sam. At one point in the film, Penn and
Pfeiffer start making goo-goo eyes at one another and embrace. The movie then abruptly
cuts to the next day with the two acting awkwardly around one another and with
Pfeiffer saying things like, “I think I’ve gotten more out of this relationship
than you have.”
I’d be willing to bet any amount of money that a love
scene was filmed, test-screened and then left on the cutting-room floor. That
goes to the heart of how deeply corrupted this movie is: It is apparently
acceptable to treat the mentally disabled as circus figures for our
entertainment; it is not acceptable, however, to see them as complex human
beings with sexual urges.
If they gave out Oscars for cynicism, shallowness and
utter shamelessness, “I Am Sam” would make a clean sweep.
I Am Sam Zero Stars
Director: Jessie Nelson
Stars: Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer
Length: 130 min.
Rated: PG-13 (language)
* * *
[As autism continues to dominate in increasing numbers
within the disabled population, the issues of the disabled more so become the
issues for those with autism. This is
especially true for the autistic adults, whose numbers will manifest large as
the leading edge of the autism baby boom, which started in the late eighties
and now makes up 67% of the California autism population, emerge from their
adolescence.
[For those of us parents who wonder, “what is to become of
our children?” this is part of the falling sky that awaits them now. This
battle is our battle as the issues of adequate treatment and education segue to
issues of adequate care. Let us be forewarned: this is not far off. Let us be
forearmed: now is the time to engage in these matters. –LS. By Henry K. Lee in the SF Chronicle.]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/26/MN184089.DTL
A group of developmentally disabled residents filed a
class-action lawsuit against the state of California yesterday, demanding that
they be allowed the freedom to live in community homes instead of institutions.
Thousands of people are isolated and unhappy in
institutions, according to the plaintiffs, who claim state officials are
violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws by keeping the
disabled from being part of their communities.
“I want to be on my own. I will be happy to be on my own
and close by my family,” said Avery Russell, 45, who lives at Agnews
Developmental Center in San Jose and suffers from a disability that causes him
to be overweight.
Russell joined 11 other disabled plaintiffs and several
advocacy groups who filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court, hoping to
force the state to give them and others information on community living options
and other alternatives to institutions.
The suit names as defendants the state Department of
Developmental Services, other state agencies and the 21 private, nonprofit
agencies, known as regional centers, that contract with the state to provide
care for people with disabilities including cerebral palsy, mental retardation,
epilepsy and autism.
State officials said yesterday that they were reviewing
the suit and had no comment.
Bob Baldo, executive director of Sacramento’s Association
of Regional Center Agencies, declined to discuss the suit directly, but
insisted that the regional centers are serving the disabled well.
“I think the data does tend to support the idea that
people who live in community settings are better off,” Baldo said. “But overall
the regional centers have done a really excellent job in trying to provide
resources in an ever-expanding population that we need to serve.”
For the past 35 years, the state has steadily transferred
the developmentally disabled from its five hospital-like developmental centers—in
San Jose and Sonoma in the Bay Area—into community facilities. Critics of the
move say clients are more likely to die prematurely in community homes than in
developmental centers.
Berkeley Assemblywoman Dion Aroner said the lawsuit should
help push through the state Legislature a bill she wrote that seeks to shut
down most of the developmental centers.
Plaintiffs say the state is not moving fast enough. They
spoke at a news conference yesterday at the Oakland Marriott Hotel, the site of
a conference for those who support community living.
“Our clients’ needs are urgent,” said Ellen Goldblatt, an
attorney for Protection & Advocacy Inc. of Oakland. “California has not
moved forward to reverse the trend of unnecessary institutionalization.”
East Palo Alto lawyer Michael Pyle, another attorney for
the plaintiffs, said he wants the suit certified as a class action because he believes
that more than 6,000 Californians urgently need community-centered care.
“We hope the state will choose to spend money on getting
in compliance with the law, rather than spending money on lawyers during years
of litigation,” Pyle said. “I look forward to the day that this case is successfully
resolved.”
Melbert Schanzenbach, 78, who lives at Sonoma
Developmental Center, said he wants to be close to his brother in the
Sacramento area. But the Alta California Regional Center there has not found an
assistant that he needs to move to a community home.
* * *
[By Camillo Fracassini cfracassini@scotlandonsunday.com
in Scotland on
Sunday Newspaper.
Thanks to James A Mackie and Mrs. Patricia Anne Kehela.]
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/
Autistic adults have been wrongly diagnosed as
schizophrenic and incarcerated for up to 30 years, Scotland on Sunday can
reveal.
Experts fear up to 20 Scots have been mistakenly branded a
danger to themselves or others and locked up in psychiatric hospitals where
they are given inappropriate drugs.
Doctors and campaigners blame a lack of Scottish expertise
in adult autism for the mistaken diagnoses and have called for an urgent
government inquiry.
Last night, health minister Malcolm Chisholm called on
psychiatrists to review diagnoses if they have any doubts.
Paul Shattock, director of the Autism Research Unit at
Sunderland University, said he was “worried sick” by the Scottish cases which
had been brought to his attention by relatives.
Shattock said: “This is unwarranted incarceration. They
have effectively been silenced and their relatives have been powerless to help them.
“I have been contacted by about eight parents from
Scotland and I fear this may be the tip of the iceberg. I believe there may be
up to 20 people in this situation.”
Shattock added: “There is no doubt that this has been
going on for a long time and there may well be some individuals who have been
misdiagnosed and treated inappropriately for up to 30 years. These patients are
given medication appropriate for schizophrenia, which makes them worse, and
they are given more and more medication as a result.”
Tomorrow the Public Health Institute of Scotland is due to
publish an alarming report into autism services in Scotland, which is expected
to identify serious failings.
An estimated 500,000 people in the UK and 28,000 Scots are
affected by autism, but the number of Scots adults with the condition is not
known.
Symptoms range from total withdrawal and an inability to
communicate to difficulties with change and obsessive tendencies. Some could be
mistakenly associated with schizophrenia.
Psychologist Dr Ken Aitken, a leading autism expert, said
he had come across about a dozen cases of people with autistic spectrum
disorder who he believes have been misdiagnosed as schizophrenics. Some were
kept in secure psychiatric units.
“These are adults who I believe have some autistic
spectrum disorder but have been diagnosed as having schizophrenia or some
severe anxiety disorder,” he said.
Aitken added that autistic adults had been diagnosed as
schizophrenic before autism and Asperger’s syndrome - a form of autism where
sufferers are typically of average or above intelligence - were recognised by psychiatrists,
and have not been re-assessed. He called for an inquiry to find out how many
were misdiagnosed.
Aitken said: “There has to be a systematic review to find
out how many people fall into this category. There may well be a large number
of people who were given a particular mental health label which was appropriate
for that time but whose diagnosis has not been revisited. I know it has
happened and it is probably still happening.”
Last night, a spokesman for the Scottish Society for
Autism confirmed the doctor’s fears. “There is no doubt that there are autistic
adults in Scotland who have been misdiagnosed, particularly those with
Asperger’s syndrome.”
In December, an attempt by the BBC to highlight such cases
had to be shelved following legal action by Fife Primary Care NHS Trust.
The programme was to have featured a 25-year-old man who
is being treated for schizophrenia in a secure unit in Fife after being
sectioned under the Mental Health (Scotland) Act. His parents are adamant he is
autistic.
However, hospital chiefs obtained an interim interdict in
the Court of Session in Edinburgh - effectively banning the Frontline Scotland
programme. Critics argued the legal
move swept the problem under the carpet.
Lloyd Quinan, convener of the Scottish parliament’s
cross-party group on autism, yesterday backed the calls for a government
inquiry. “These people are falling foul of rules in hospitals and end up being
controlled with cocktails of drugs.”
Last night, Chisholm said: “Misdiagnosis in the past is a
possibility, but we would expect health professionals to review their diagnoses
where there is doubt.”
Dr Jim Dyer, director of the Mental Welfare Commission for
Scotland - the government’s watchdog for mentally ill patients - said he did
not believe there was a major problem. with autistic adults being misdiagnosed as
schizophrenic.
“While I am not saying it hasn’t happened, I don’t think
it is a large problem,” he said. “I do believe that in some cases parents find
it hard to accept that a patient has schizophrenia and prefer to think it is
some other condition.”
* * *
TalkingWords is new software to
help you teach language to children with autism. TalkingWords lets you manage student progress, print reports,
mini books, flash cards, worksheets and mini-cards. Please see http://www.talkingwords.com for all the details.
York, PA looking for a Child Psychiatrist to perform an
independent
educational evaluation on a 7 y/o Asperger child. Reply
parentsupportnetwork@netzero.net
I have answered several readers
posts, and not once have I even received a thank you for bothering to do
so. Your readers are most ignorant. Lyn
S. [From the editor: Lyn, I have put
your post here so that the message gets out that we expect those who use this
free service to show gratitude for any help offered. But be assured, Lyn, that you just hit an unusual bad sreak because
we receive a steady flow of letters of appreciation from grateful parents for
our efforts. Don’t give up doing good works for those who truly are unable to
say thank you for themselves. It’s for
them we do what we can. And for them, I
say “Thank you, Lyn, for trying to help make the world a little easier for us.
Please don’t quit because you think your efforts are wasted. They’re not.”
–Lenny]
We are moving to the Fort Worth
area this summer and would like to know of any good or bad school districts in
the area. Any info would be greatly appreciated
including therapy, doctors, etc. Kaw2@aol.com.
We are looking to correspond
with parents in Chico, Colusa, Williams, CA, or any town near these. We want info from parents on special ed
services in these areas as we may be relocating. We have a nonverbal Downs and autistic 7 ½ year old boy. Please also include contacts with good educators/speech/OT. conev@thegrid.net.
I was wondering if anyone has
tried and found success using Neuro-Developmental Remediation with their
autistic child. (This is where the child does exercises that replicate patterns
of early development to improve current functioning). Tterlis@aol.com.
Are there good services for high-functioning ASD children in
west
Texas(Lubbock area)?
We are considering a move from California, but are
hesitant because our son has a pretty good education out
here. I am
specifically looking for information on state services
(respite, ABA, etc.)
and education. Are
there any ABA agencies out there? What
about
occupational therapy? Missy cmmissy@earthlink.net
For Individuals, organizations, non-commercial and
commercial
>> Send your posting, only 60 words please, posting@feat.org
no charge <<
>>> PROFESSORS, TEACHERS, TRAINERS
<<<
Autism Continuing Education for
Students Now Available
FEAT Daily Newsletter, NO FEE
For the Knowledge Only, No CEUs
>> DO SOMETHING ABOUT AUTISM NOW <<
Subscribe, Read, then Forward the FEAT Daily
Newsletter.
To Subscribe go to www.feat.org/FEATnews
No Cost!
Lenny Schafer, Editor@feat.org • CALENDAR EVENTS@feat.org
Michelle Guppy
Catherine Johnson PhD
• Ron Sleith •
Kay Stammers • Edward Decelie
UNSUBSCRIBE: FEATNews-signoff-request@LIST.FEAT.ORG
ALL
INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR
GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE
KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED
AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO
VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU
ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.