Autism Song (more accurately for the parents)

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It's local song and in Arabic.

No need for translation, its description explains it all.

"let me hear your voice" it tells of the Father's anguish for the silence of his son yet refuses to feel ashamed of him.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxQETFFTvZs[/youtube]

That kid is really a nonverbal autistic, but what do you think of the way the autistic kid is portrayed in the vid?

I don't know, I don't have a particular thought about it. I didn't meet an autistic kid that behaves that way, I don't know if it's realistic...

He looks low functioning, but still he's portrayed too mute...

and that kid isn't just an actor, he's truly autistic.

I didn't understand a word he sang, but I really liked it!

I've seen kids like that boy though.

I didn't really like it. Whenever he was actually interacting with his environment, the father would direct him away because it was atypical. He glances at a clown and starts flapping his hands, and his father grabs his hands. He traces a line on a wall, and his father pulls him away from it. It's like he spends the whole video wanting his son to respond, and then when his son does, he makes the kid stop.

There's this stereotype that LFA kids are unresponsive, but every single one that I've met is responding to things in their own atypical way. And if you join them in that, they'll start interacting with you. Like if he started tracing along with the kid on the wall, maybe he'd have gotten a brief glance and a little smile from the boy.

Yea, I thought they were trying really hard to make him too unresponsive.

I'm wary of autistic portrayal with a camera team present and in a staged scenery/interaction.

(That's because it is sometimes misused and people don't seem to comprehend because they're moved "emotionally". I can't get over scenes such as that an autistic person explains they cannot stand the presence of even 1 or 2 people and cannot interact with them beyond a couple of prepared sentences at all... doing so while they're filmed in public following a script and repeating scenes until they're good/at home with a large team present for several hours of several days. That's just... no.)

There are small titbits that show the boy isn't as unresponsive as is intended to be presented in the video. Capable of following pointing/sharing attention, good awareness of physical closeness of the father or other people from what changes in movement/body language point to, numerous displays of reactions to what's presented to him by others... that sort of thing which is all very hard to pretend to hardly be able to do.

Overall, I liked the video though.

In a way, the (staged) normality of its presentation is a take on emotional ASD presentations I really enjoy. It doesn't evoke this strange impression that ASD means dealing every minute of the day with a red-faced screaming and aggressive kid or of a child and a family ignoring each other.

Though it just occurred to me that others may perceive the child as a lot more unresponsive. Such an impression could be dangerous if it were taken to mean an autistic person doesn't have their own mind or doesn't notice what goes on around them. Well, all presentations naturally have two sides to them.

Honestly , I perceived him like a deaf shocked kid more than anything else.

I know a younger, 5 yo selective mute kid (I don't know if he's autistic or not). So far the only way I could interact with him was by reviewing his collection of picture cards of animals... He liked my pancake, anyway.

That one is translated:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_6gIj1Jusok

The song is about
1. What would makes the dad happy
2. An assumption that the kid is unhappy because he is silent.

Dad is not ashamed but he is not accepting.