loudness of a gong in a boxing ring. That went on as well all afternoon. Convenient accommodations were next door. The same ‘stimulation’ went on from the very beginning the next morning till two hours before the return flight was due. In the last half hour mom was given detailed instructions to carry out the same at home, specified hour by hour, by which point she already had made extensive notes about what she was going to embark herself into -and her husband plus volunteer neighbors!- through the time of their next appointment when they would reevaluate the girl and assess her progress, again (and for a total of 6 similar visits) ‘always towards excellence.’
The issue of mom’s intensive efforts became well known in town and soon even caught the attention of the press, all praising mom for such ‘faith, dedication, hard work and endurance’ in spite of the little progress seen. Within two weeks after their return from the big city, tired of the demands, volunteer neighbors coming in and out of their house all day long, mutual marital alienation -‘and of the loud gong!’- dad had disappeared. Sad! Seemingly impervious to the massive demands of their time and their broken marriage, mom continued with it all as if nothing had happened. She acted as a happy martyr.
Dr. Martin got to see the family’s misfortune and demise two more times over the next 8 months. Over that time, he saw no perceptible progress in the girl’s communication as she remained non verbal, distant and aloof without eye contact. And his ‘non-supportive’ position to all that extraordinary intervention for the poor autistic girl was reported by a local teacher to the State Health Department, The Wolves: He does not believe in helping these kids! Dr. Martin is dangerous! He has to go!…
5-B: Harry Jamison was a developmentally delayed preschooler. He was 4&1/2 years old that winter and due for regular kindergarten the next fall. But mom knew he was not ready for school by a long shot though he was making steady progress. He was altogether about 1 to 1&1/2 years behind other kids of his age, still not interested in learning his colors, letters or numbers and not having yet started to pedal a tricycle. [Dr. Martin tells this writer with a chuckle that HIS KIDS were beginning to read by 2…]. When his mother tried to read stories to Harry out of toddlers’ books he’d look the other way. If she forcefully kept him at her side sitting on the couch as she was showing the pages identifying for him the animal pictures, he simply fidgeted, uninterested. He was just not ready though he was starting to become calmer and interested in watching the TV screen, especially if it had fast moving scenes.
Mom told all that to Dr. Martin. She also told him that he had been enrolled since age 3 in an Early Intervention program (where he was getting the 3-T’s) but that whenever she attended his sessions (‘just to take a look and learn myself what to do at home’) she did not see what was ‘the purpose of all that.’ Much of the so called ‘Intervention’ was just baby sitting, there was no interaction with other kids, no group activities that would engage him -he rather wandered by himself around the classroom or in the school yard when all were outside- and he was not paying attention when 1-to-1 ‘teaching’ or ‘therapy’ was attempted.
Yet in Dr. Martin’s observations and in his neuro-developmental examination of little Harry, he saw no major neurological diagnosis like C.P. or autism or even PDD (‘Pervasive Developmental Disorder’). He just saw the kid as basically a normal ‘late bloomer’ toddler and so he told his mother. ”As such, he told her, I believe that he has the potential to become a normal youngster and even a normal adult, even if he goes through school a couple of years behind.” He further told his mother that he would not have put him through all that ‘E.I.’ and that he simply would have let him grow up and mature at his own pace with plenty of love at home and without coercing him into activities and participation in learning as he was now forced to attend. Dr. Martin hammered these comments by reassuring her with the recent news (kept hidden in the US) that in some Scandinavian areas -where kids in high school show more proficiency than in the US- ‘school attendance was not started till 6 or 7.’ Mom felt happy to hear that.
Along the same lines, Dr. Martin further told the mother -a matter not easily admitted and shared among parents, considered sort of demeaning, as if your kids were slow- that HE, a doctor now, was once held back in elementary school (he had grown up in Western Europe) and had become a straight A student after that. That two of his own kids, now high achievers and PhDs, had attended just 1/2 day kindergarten, NOT intensive, “early stuff’. “Holding a late bloomer back simply sets him when he is ready at his own speed, so he feels more comfortable, instead of being pushed, struggling all along and trying to catch up,” he told her.
And of course the first thing mom did when she got home was to call the school - Sandwell Elementary- and tell them that she was going to keep little Harry at home from then on; that she planned to give her son herself all the stimulation he needed -and that he could handle- until HE was ready for regular school. Believing the specialist Dr. Martin, she thought that he was just a late bloomer and that he would mature at his own good pace without forcing things onto him. Well done!
“And Dr, Martin told you to pull him out of school?” the Principal asked her.
“Yeap! He did! And I am very happy with it and I feel he is right!.”
Needles to say, that created a commotion in school. In a teachers’ conference, only two teachers who knew the mother personally and felt she was a very capable woman, agreed with her decision of pulling him out of Pre-K. But most showed displeasure and even outrage. Sandwell school took mostly pre-schoolers and was heavily invested into Special Ed, Early Intervention, early stuff, the 3-T’s, etc. Cases like that of Harry Jamison would give the school and its programs a black eye…
And of course the Principal called the local Office of Professional Conduct (OPC, The Wolves) to hurt Dr. Martin. It brought against him ANOTHER complaint to the State Health Department!. He is bad for our area, for our schools. The man has to go! [Indeed, Dr. Martin was asking for it! I say]
5-C: A mother with a set of triplets, Mrs. Moulder, from a town some some 70 miles away, came one day with the three kids to see Dr. Martin. Actually she had had quadruplets but the fourth hadn’t made it beyond birth. The three were 7&1/2 months old. Mom was concerned that they were simply not up the level of the other infants attending the same nursery school. They were not babbling, they did not lough, hardly smiled, did not roll or sit up, lying most of the time on their backs, but seemed to her otherwise good looking and sort of happy. One of the three especially was not interested in anything, her eyes wandering aimlessly. The two boys were ‘a pinch more with it’ than she was.
Mom had had difficult time conceiving. She and her husband had tried locally every available aid to conceive, word-of-mouth suggestion, professional medical advice and had even entertained just adopting. Then they heard of a far away center that specialized in IVF (In Vitro Fertilization). It would be a very expensive proposition but they went for it… And it worked!
She did conceive via IVF (for five fetuses!) with her husband’s sperm. One died intrautero. Another did not make it more than a couple of hours after the C-Section that had been performed on the 8th month; the autopsy had revealed a severe congenital heart defect incompatible with life. Just three survived. But the three, a girl and two boys, were thriving slowly, not progressing at the speed of others of similar age. All three had a heart defect -just ‘a hole in the heart,’ no big deal- but had no other obvious physical anomaly. Their local pediatrician did not have a diagnosis for the parents and simply told them to just give them time.
Dr. Martin examined all three as they laid with just their diapers naked on blankets on the floor of his office. The physical and neurological parts, like measurements of their head, an eye exam, muscle tone and reflexes, were all unremarkable. That was simple and straight forward. The most important part for him was observing them as he talked to mom and she gave their history, and also hers and her husband’s family history. They clearly had limited eye contact, especially the girl, and in spite
