Autism

The film Autism: The Musical helped me understand Christopher because it clarified that he was autistic. Christopher has many symptoms of Autism although it is not as severe as some of the kids in the film. The most similarities that Christopher has with someone in the film is with Henry. Henry has autism that is known as Asperger Syndrome. One of the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome is having a common interest that occupies the brain so much that it does not leave room for normal things such as social skills (Osbayrak). For Henry, his interests are lizards and dinosaurs and Henry is so focused on those things that he does not know common things. Similarly, Christopher’s interests are Math and Science and he is so focused on those things that he does have many social skills. Another common occurrence is what Autistic kids do to calm down or to ease their brain. An important fact that was stated in the movie was that there are so many things that are going in their brain, that they are not able to compute it. So they sometimes need a way to relieve them. Christopher’s way for relieving himself is to do math problems while for Adam. His way of relieving himself is to cover his ears as seen as when he is on the playground. Most Autistic kids have many common things however there are some differences. Another important fact that was stated was that there are two big pictures of Autism. One is that they have verbal skills and the other is they do not. For Christopher he has the ability to have verbal skills just like Wyatt. However Neal does not have the capability to be able to talk. As you can see there are many types of Autism out there, some are severe and some are not. I think that if we look in an Autistic world, Christopher is very lucky to have a case that is not as severe.

Osbayrak, MD, R. Kaan. "What Is Asperger's Disorder." ASPERGER'S DISORDER HOMEPAGE. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. .