“Parallel play:

“A lifetime of restless isolation explained”

Here’s a first-person view of life with Asperger’s syndrome, from the point of view of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post music critic Tim Page.

Writing in the August 20 issue of the New Yorker magazine, Page says his life has been spent in a state of parallel play, alongside yet separated from the rest of humanity. While the writer was baffled and frustrated by his differences as he was growing up, he has come to realize that Asperger’s is integral to his personality and has also brought him success and personal satisfaction. The article is not on the web but is available at the newsstand.

Page is also interviewed by Robert Siegel on National Public Radio, and the interview is available for listening on the NPR site.

From my unofficial transcript:

I was obsessed with detail. I was obsessed with music. I was obsessed with silent film. I was obsessed with old photographs. and I was really completely oblivious to a tremendous amount of other things that were going on around me, including most social things and certainly most of what my teachers wanted me to know. I basically flunked and flunked and flunked for many many years, but I educated myself, at least in the subjects I was really interested in.

… I am much more drawn into the human race now, much happier and certainly much more in control. it’s not something that goes away. There is no quote unquote cure for it. but there is living with it…. it’s just a different way of processing information… but it can be quite difficult, especially when you’re young.

NPR also carries a story on the challenges faced by public schools as they prepare to educate a massive influx of children with autism.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Asperger's, autism, education, first-person, quality of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.