John Elder Robison enlightens and inspires about his own autism

John Elder Robison learned that he had autism when he was 40 years old. So goes the saga of his remarkable life, as he shared with an audience in Wilton, Connecticut. His lecture tells a journey that travels from childhood to his own experience benefiting from  Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Robison left his home at 15 years of age. He did not finish high school and now, decades later, he has been given an honorary high school diploma while being asked to teach on the University level. Go figure. So goes the story of autism, as lived by a man who forged his own path, bumping along the way, both literally and figuratively. His autobiography look me in the eye-my life with asperger's chronicles events that led to a now obvious diagnosis, but in the early years he was viewed as "obnoxious and rude".

John Elder states in his book that I have a lot of trouble reading other people. I am not very good at looking at people and knowing whether they like me, or they're mad, or they're just waiting for me to say something. I don't have problems like that with machines. He constructed a computer kit at 13 years old, by simply guessing. It was then that Robison knew he had a gift. This savant ability propelled him into a world of rock and roll. He designed sound systems for bands as Pink Floyd, Kiss, the Kinks and Blondie. When he saturated that market, he ventured into the toy arena and worked for Milton Bradley, working on games like Simon and Speak & Spell.

It wasn't until  Robison delved into the repairing exclusive automobiles, did he meet a man who would change his life. He was handed a book by a customer, Tony Atwood's Asperger's Syndrome.  "Well, I thought, that certainly describes me. Not looking at people, making the wrong impressions,and gesturing when I should be still...that was me all right, and it wasn't good."

What is most interesting about Mr. Robison is that his keen insight in to autism articulates what many individuals cannot share. His understanding that there is a "hair's breadth" of difference between his Asperger's abilities and the circumstance of a non verbal individual with cognitive impairment. He believes that the general population does not understand that autism is a spectrum disorder.

Robison divides autism into 3 dysfunctional states. The first is social intelligence. He recalls failures and blunders that he exhibited as a child. When referring to a woman with girth around her midsection, he might have asked "Are you pregnant, or are you just fat?" This social ignorance prevents an individual from getting a job or finding a girlfriend.

The 2nd area of weakness regards speech and the ability to understand and speak. He compares the dysfunction to that of dogs who can't break down words into language, but understand emotion. Robison points out that science shows us that there is a rhythm, a cadence or melody to language. Autistic individuals may not be able to talk, but can sing with perfect clarity.

He comments that the 3rd dysfunction is how the body reacts in space. It is not free flowing or graceful for the person with autism, and that he often struggles with this issue to this day.

A New Frontier

The TMS Lab is located at Boston’s Beth Israel's Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. John Elder Robison has participated in the study of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation:

For the past year and a half I’ve been privileged to work with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone and his team of scientists to explore autism and the brain. They are using high power magnetic fields to reach inside our minds to unravel some of the mysteries of how we think. The technique they use is called TMS, for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Robison credits his personal experience in the study as quite positive and believes that it may have great potential in work with autism. However, he is clear that his interpretation is from personal trial. In my case, the result of some TMS experiments has been truly life-changing. I credit TMS with fundamentally altering the way I see and engage other people. My strong belief in the power of TMS is solidly based on my own experiences in the lab.

TMS uses the principle of induction to deliver tiny amounts of energy to precisely targeted areas of the brain. It’s done by placing a handheld electromagnet against the scalp and pulsing it with energy. The resultant magnetic field reaches into the brain, where it induces tiny electrical currents in the threads of brain cells, or neurons. That energy can enhance or inhibit the functioning of areas as small as 1% of our total brain mass. The process itself is really quite simple, but figuring out where and how to deploy it… that is the great mystery.

What was most revealing in John Elder Robison's words was his recollection of how he felt after the effects of TMS wore off. He credited it to the same notion in the story Flowers for Algernon, characterized in the film Charly. A cognitively impaired man reaches genius following an experimental surgery. Ultimately, the effects of the surgery diminish and he is reduced to his former self.

The vistas are endless, if research and science are supported. John Elder Robison stands before his audience conveying a message of hope and possibility.