The Story Unfolds - Contents
Avril’s Background
The Family
The Inside
Outsider
Brothers &
Sisters
The
Boston Higashi School
So
Who’s Normal ?
Behaviour Study
In February 1999,
Lincolnshire Care Services (Heath Farm), England, Lincolnshire’s first
Residential and Specialist
Centre for adults with autism
and Asperger Syndrome, made a
unprecedented and innovative step forward in employing a 52 year old High
Functioning Asperger Syndrome
woman as a full time member of staff working with autistic clients, her progress
closely monitored with interest by the London broadsheet newspaper, The Daily
Telegraph.
Avril Jenson, who can
demonstrate autistic savant abilities includes in her previous employment record
working with the Ministry of Defence, a driving instructor
with a 96% pass rate in Nottingham, a researcher with a top financial analyst
company, and a private nurse, Heath Farm being her first full time job since her
autism was acceptably
recognised after a late appraisal
at the age of 40. Avril has experienced many
vicissitudes in life including a bereavement of a son with autism who took his
own life having being failed to be
recognised as autistic at the age
of 3 when his mother brought his circumstance to the attention of Social
Services who declared him as deaf.
Such sociological experiences, and traumas have only gone to underline
the importance and worth of speaking out as a doyen and spokesperson for
autistic survivors, both leading by example in the face of social adversity and
archaic stigma and as a voice who can clearly express themselves on the subject of
autism from the vantage point of personal and empirical experience, a living
testimony to the possibilities of autistic endeavour and
achievement.
Avril has a 22 year old son
who is also recognised as being on
the autistic spectrum (an Asperger) and has managed to
come through mainstream schooling.
In 1996 he aspired to becoming the 1996 British kickboxing champion
before a bus accident brought him from out of the sport through injury and a
setback in physical health, and who has turned his problematic sleeping hours to
an advantage by developing a noticeable talent to demonstrate an acknowledged
professional ability as an upcoming DJ.
In December, Ben was such a DJ for one night conducting a 5 hour set at
the Heath Farm Staff and Clients’ Xmas party for a Unit with Asperger Service Users. Furthermore, Avril has two grandchildren
who are also on the autistic spectrum.
Her husband Malcolm is also employed at Heath Farm involved with
young Asperger adults, having spent
over a previous year working in a Challenging Behaviour Unit there. Mr Jenson, who has worked
previously in both local and national television and the music business, spent a
prolonged period when younger at a retreat for Tibetan refugees at Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire in Scotland and under
the patronage of an authentic Tibetan lama learned the way of Tibetan Buddhism
and its emphasis and understanding of attested multifarious levels of
consciousness and the study of Mind from an Eastern perspective, his personal
and private research over the last decade presenting a valid case for a tangible
connection between various Schools of the Eastern Buddhist’s search for
enlightenment and the unfolding and ongoing evolution of the autistic
consciousness as evinced in the common aspiration of turning within, detachment
and elaborate ritual. A book titled
“Buddha and The Autist”, that could
not have been written without the insight and assistance from his wife, is
expected to be published and available by late Spring, and has been referred to
by the best selling author of “Anthropologist on Mars”, New York neuro-psychologist Oliver
Sacks, as a liable fascinating book.
Avril, whose personal
interests are in the field of physics, cybernetics and semantics and whose
ambition is to visit the atomic particle accelerator (or “atom crusher”)
at Cerne, Switzerland, still
struggles with the focus of attention that can be put on her, and will shy away
from all forms of praise, such a consequence can precipitate a 3 day traumatic
delay. Referring to herself as a
“inside outsider”, her abilities to provide information from what she refers to
as her “department” seems to confirm Oliver Sacks’ much publicised clinical work that has
led to speculation that mathematics, aesthetics and music amongst other sciences
and arts can be perceived not only as logical systems, comprehensible through
rational deduction, but as “landscapes” which the mind can survey instantly,
such are the complexities of the autistic mind.
Avril refers to all autistic persons as her
brothers and sisters, and states that she is in each and every one of them. Currently she works alongside,
primarily, 9 clients classified classic autists with learning and severe
learning difficulties. In the past,
autistic persons seem to demonstrate a silent knowing and familiarity even upon
initial meeting with Avril, and she has been able to provide information for
parents about their children’s condition, explaining the reasons for their
behaviour patterns and advising re-adjustment in their lifestyle that has
satisfied parental needs. In
January, one such mother of a 27 year old classic autist has stated her belief
that her son is now being brought more into this world from out of his autistic
cocoon thus decreasing his long term epileptic seizure
rate.
In July of 1999, both Malcolm and Avril were
kindly invited to the acclaimed Boston Higashi School, Massachusetts, USA, (who
were recorded the previous year during an independent evaluation by observers
stating that interaction among the Higashi Students at all grade levels exceeded
any previous experience with children with autism) and a great friendship struck
up, whereby currently the Principal and Executive Director Robert A Fantasia has
begun to enter into frequent and regular correspondence with the Jensons. Mr Fantasia was very keen to receive
Avril’s opinion about the running of his school, and her expressive consent, and
has presented her an option to landscape their gardens in trust that it would
therefore appeal also to fellow autists.
Much of the information that Avril would like to
disseminate to interested parties is the emphasis and relevance that geometry
plays in the life of the autistic person and their structured relationship with
all about them. Let us consider the
following: The origin of the word “normal” is from the Late Latin “normalis”
from Latin, made according to the carpenter’s square, rectangular, from
“norma”. The simple implication of
a rectangle - a parallelogram with a right angle - points us into the area of
geometry, the mathematics of the properties, measurement and relationships of
points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids. If we may borrow from the interaction
here with the words “normal”, “geometry” and “relationship”, it could be seen
that normal relationships must therefore be found within geometry, the autistic
persons relationship with all around them a strict geometry in a world where
public opinion bases what passes as normal simply on appearance
alone.
In sixty years or so, the autist has been, in the
main, unable to speak for itself.
Great numbers of
clinical observations tell us what the autist is seen to do, but
offers up little or no reason as to why.
Professionals are but watching, unable to garner understanding of
the autist’s motives or reasoning
from behind their side of the glass plate.
The behaviour is alien to
our thinking. As understanding of
autism seems now
ensconced in the Dark Ages of the
1940’s of the last millennium, the task of unravelling the mystery of autism
is edging towards the responsibility of the geneticist, an area possibly
slightly less mysterious than that of the terrain of the neurologist. It may be a good idea to look closer to
home and give floor space to
accommodating autists
themselves.
To this purpose, in
1999, Avril made a study of the 30
or so recognised
behaviours displayed by autistic
children and went into her autistic realm to seek rationalised explanation from the
autistic world or consciousness for all of them. It is her hope and further aspiration to
offer individual help or advice to any parents of autistic children
or carers who are willing to
accept that helpful counsel can emanate from capable autists themselves with a foot
in both worlds.
Avril Jenson in her private
capacity invites comments and can be contacted at the following email address…
malcolm.jenson@ntlworld.com