“Facilitated”
The spousette is meeting today with a prospective client whose case she will almost certainly decline—it would require more time and resources than she has free at the moment—although she hopes in the course of their consultation to point him toward firms with whom his case might be a better fit.
The object of the case is a severely autistic male, late teens, who neither speaks nor, presumably, reads. There are other things he doesn’t do, but I will spare you these, my auditors. One thing he does do is paint. From what I’ve seen, the works may be (perhaps charitably) described as “abstract.” When the kid was eleven the proud (desperate?) father printed up a little trifold flyer with his son’s paintings, together with a narrative purporting to be the prodigy’s own words. Since the prodigy communicates only via grunts and screams, it was necessary to transcribe his thoughts via “facilitated typing.” Yeah, right. Turns out the kid can produce grammatical sentences with subordinate clauses, and has thoughts about the nature of “God’s gifts” to him.
Me, I hope that these presents came with a fucking “gift” receipt for exchange or refund purposes.
I don’t mean to mock* the father here. It must be an impossible position—I can’t even—and I’m sure that some psychological imperatives came into play as he “facilitated” his son’s fingers on the keyboard. No doubt he believes he has channeled the boy’s thoughts. The case is heartbreaking.
What, as a matter of public policy, is to be done with such cases? You can’t euthanize them (at least not yet—following a second Trump term, who knows?), and I do not think that, legal majority being reached, their parents, who have certainly drunk the lees of sorrow more than any of us ever will, should be chained to the child world without end, amen. Honestly, I think these creatures “are and of right ought to be” charges upon the public trust. There is actually a system in California, the so-called “Regional Centers,” set up to care for such unfortunates, although they sometimes have to be compelled by court order to do so. Fun factoid: Early in her career L routinely represented the SF Regional Center when it would attempt to turn away applicants. The process sickened her, and after a few years she defected to the other side (although mainly carrying water on behalf of minors, who fall outside the Regional Centers’ purview). She reports that even though it put us on short rations until a few years ago, she sleeps easier.
cordially,
*But there is apparently a class of “professional” “facilitators” who do this sort of thing, and mockery is the mildest of responses I might contemplate for these charlatans.
The object of the case is a severely autistic male, late teens, who neither speaks nor, presumably, reads. There are other things he doesn’t do, but I will spare you these, my auditors. One thing he does do is paint. From what I’ve seen, the works may be (perhaps charitably) described as “abstract.” When the kid was eleven the proud (desperate?) father printed up a little trifold flyer with his son’s paintings, together with a narrative purporting to be the prodigy’s own words. Since the prodigy communicates only via grunts and screams, it was necessary to transcribe his thoughts via “facilitated typing.” Yeah, right. Turns out the kid can produce grammatical sentences with subordinate clauses, and has thoughts about the nature of “God’s gifts” to him.
Me, I hope that these presents came with a fucking “gift” receipt for exchange or refund purposes.
I don’t mean to mock* the father here. It must be an impossible position—I can’t even—and I’m sure that some psychological imperatives came into play as he “facilitated” his son’s fingers on the keyboard. No doubt he believes he has channeled the boy’s thoughts. The case is heartbreaking.
What, as a matter of public policy, is to be done with such cases? You can’t euthanize them (at least not yet—following a second Trump term, who knows?), and I do not think that, legal majority being reached, their parents, who have certainly drunk the lees of sorrow more than any of us ever will, should be chained to the child world without end, amen. Honestly, I think these creatures “are and of right ought to be” charges upon the public trust. There is actually a system in California, the so-called “Regional Centers,” set up to care for such unfortunates, although they sometimes have to be compelled by court order to do so. Fun factoid: Early in her career L routinely represented the SF Regional Center when it would attempt to turn away applicants. The process sickened her, and after a few years she defected to the other side (although mainly carrying water on behalf of minors, who fall outside the Regional Centers’ purview). She reports that even though it put us on short rations until a few years ago, she sleeps easier.
cordially,
*But there is apparently a class of “professional” “facilitators” who do this sort of thing, and mockery is the mildest of responses I might contemplate for these charlatans.
