RON SUSKIND
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist,
Author and Autism Dad
BY SHARON CUMMINGS
in reality and in animation, we are the ones
being rescued when we discover that all it takes
is faith, trust and a little bit of Tinkerbell’s pixie
dust for good measure.
As a mom to an autistic adult who also learned
through the eyes of Disney—the way Ron’s
youngest son Owen did—I love learning about
other parents’ journeys. Life, Animated is not
just a story about autism; it is one about perseverance and HOPE—two words that just so
happen to be favorites of mine and Conner’s.
This was why I was so excited to have the opportunity to interview Ron and for Conner to
be able to interview Owen. (Read Conner and
Owen’s incredible interview that follows this
one.) While no two journeys are ever the same,
I certainly was able to see my family in the Suskind’s story. We at Zoom think you will too.
We invite you to get to know Ron and Owen a
little better by reading the following interviews,
and encourage you to visit their website Life
Animated to learn more about the Autism Affinity Project, Affinity Therapy and their book,
Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and
Autism.
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S
omething mystifying happens the moment you find out you are going to become a parent. Without even realizing you
are doing it, you start to imagine what
life will be like, who this little person will
become, what the future has in store. Ron
Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and
author of some of America’s most important
works of nonfiction that explore the complexities of the human experience, and his wife Cornelia were no different. They too had dreams
for their children, Walt and Owen. We are sure
that Ron, being a writer, had created quite a
vivid picture too! But before they knew it, that
storyline changed and the Suskinds quickly
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ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses
found themselves in a parallel world where
they chose to dive down Alice in Wonderland’s
rabbit hole into a new, unfamiliar world, a
place where they would meet interesting characters, hear enchanting music and learn a whole
new language mimicking every magical word
from Owen’s favorite Disney movies.
An autism specialist once told the Suskinds that
they were trying to “rescue their child.” How
easy it is for parents to believe that they are the
ones doing the rescuing when in reality, just
like Ron talks about in his book Life, Animated:
A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, sometimes it is unclear who rescues whom. Perhaps,
Sharon C.: One of my favorite quotes in the
book is one by Owen. “You have to live in the
world.” In your book you talk a lot about parallel worlds (real
and Disney). Can
you explain what
you mean by parallel worlds and
how you were able
to help Owen open
the gate and cross
over between to
the two?
of everything in all of those movies, which he
was using as code breakers to crack the mysteries of an often inscrutable world. We realized this was happening, but it wasn’t until he
was 19 and about to leave home that he let us
into this matrix,
showing how his
interpretations
of the movies
and what he was
“into” at various
times helped him
to organize and
interpret the opposing plane of
real events—like
two giant circuit
boards, facing each other, firing with increasing
complexity as he grew and lived. He still marks
time by what movies he was into at key periods in our lives. He remembers every time he’s
been to the theatre, which is hundreds of times,
The thing to remember is that our kids
grow on a different trajectory than
many of their peers, but they do grow
and find new venues and experiences.
Ron: When Owen
was about seven, we realized that he’d memorized all the Disney movies. Over the years, we
began to see that he’d created in his head two
enormous grids: one with the events of his life
and that of his family and another parallel grid
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