Reflection an article about Autism

Approximately 3 years ago, when I was surfing the website www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database), I bumped into a TV series named “The Good Doctor”. I stopped for a while to read viewers’ reviews and watch its trailer because I was always attracted by many medical movies. I’ve watched about 12-15 series of this genre but the reason this series astounded me most was that Shaun Murphy – the main character of this series – is a young surgeon with autism and Savant syndrome, and he is recruited into the surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. I’ve never thought that an autistic person could be a short-listed candidate for a job requiring the highest level of preciseness and concentration. I just still thought that some jobs that put less pressure on them should be chosen. To satisfy my curiosity, I told myself that I surely not only watched this series but also read a few newspapers about autism. At that time, I could not understand totally 100% content of all articles due to too many technical terms of medical, but I had changed my mind a lot about what autism is, what autistic people do to overcome hardships during their lifetime. Amazingly, I’m still keeping track of this TV series although 3 years have passed. It is hard to believe, but I still have to say that I’m impatiently waiting for the next episode released at the end of this week. What mentioned below is just about the communication problems of an autistic I’ve realized by the characteristics of Shaun and information from some articles I read in the past. The exact name of this syndrome is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASP).

Thanks to Dr. Glassman - Shaun Murphy’s uncle, he has a chance to work for St. Bonaventure hospital. No matter how excellent he is, he still cannot get an acceptance after admitting that he is autistic. And to guarantee his ability, even his uncle has to resign as Director if he does not do well during the time he has been here. It is easily understandable as no one can have 100% beliefs in anyone at first sight, even in this awkward situation. Shaun is in many troubles in very first days at work. He finds difficulty in communicating with others. He is not in extremely hot water if he just works with computing or other non-living objects, kinds of documents, statistics, etc. But in the position of a surgeon, actually, he needs a good connection with the patients to make sure that they know exactly what actions will be done in some parts of their body, how many percentages the survival rate of them is. Doctors must be the most patients’ reliability, as we know, patients also have the right to know about everything mentioned above, and make a decision about operating surgery or not. But by the way Shaun presents his expression about the patient’s condition, he makes the patients feel worse about their health problem, even some of them just want to die of disease without any treatments.

A symptom everyone knows about autistic is that they have difficulty in developing language skills and understanding what others say to them. But in fact, this problem is more serious than we used to think. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), they also often have difficulties communicating nonverbally, such as through hand gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions. Some children with ASD may not be able to communicate using speech or language, and some may have very limited speaking skills. Others may have rich vocabularies and be able to talk about specific subjects in great detail. Many have problems with the meaning and rhythm of words and sentences. They also may be unable to understand body language and the meanings of different vocal tones. Taken together, these difficulties affect the ability of children with ASD to interact with others, especially people their own age. These are many patterns of language use and often behaviors that are usually found in children with ASD, however, I want to enter the details about the lack of relationships caused by communication problem – the situation that Shaun is in, but in other aspects: romantic relationships. Some people are single but hope to have a relationship at some point. Others are single after relationships have not worked and they have decided they are better as friends. Some partners of autistic have difficult lives as their partners often couldn’t understand how exactly they feel about this relationship, even just simple aspects of life. Some partners find it difficult to cope with their partners’ special interests, while others feel isolated and depressed. For sure, these couples hardly find the same situation, and up to 90% they will end up their relationships much sooner than they used to think.

We all know that communication between people with and without autism is a two-way problem. Individuals may have communication challenges, but all the above, conversation partners could do more to meet them halfway by accepting differences in the way they express themselves. Autism can be a shortcoming, but I believe that people will try to make rapid progress to be a better version of themselves, including autistics.