Leah Goering

Dr. Marr

HON 321J

2/6/17

A Little Misfit No More

Working through the ins and outs of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood is

challenging enough for neurotypical people. I can only imagine how tough it must be for

someone with autism. This is some of the insight I hoped to gain from the book I read. I am

working to become an elementary school teacher, so I wanted to find an autobiography from

someone who talked about their life with autism from as early on as they could remember. I also

was hoping to find a book that detailed the life of an individual that grew up without a diagnosis

because as an early elementary teacher, Im sure that I will work with many students that appear

on the autism spectrum but have not yet been diagnosed because of their high functioning

abilities. For these reasons, I chose to read the book Look Me in The Eyes, by John Elder

Robinson.

John Robinson had a tough life, not even considering his Aspergers Syndrome. Neither

of his parents were stable. His dad was a drunk and his mom was mentally disturbed and found

herself in and out of mental institutions. This is far from an ideal setup for a child, but even

worse so for a child living with autism. As a result, John Robinson talks about how his dad

would physically abuse him, especially when he would not say the right things or would refuse

to look his dad in the eye (a challenging task for a child with autism). He talks a lot about how he

always felt like a misfit that couldnt fit in and he never understood why. He attempted to play

with the children in his neighborhood, but was always met with cruel laughter and teasing. As he
got older, John began to learn and understand some social cues (still minimal). After moving

around four different times in his youth and spending summers in Georgia with his grandparents,

he began to adjust better to fitting in with other children. He picked up on helpful social cues that

allowed for him to begin making friends. John Robinson had a very lofty IQ, was a devious

trickster, and knew just about everything there was to know about any transportation form or

electronics, but because of poor schooling integration and a lack of drive to focus in school, he

failed all his classes and dropped out. This ended up being extraordinarily beneficial for him.

After leaving school, John Elder was able then to focus on his true passion for electronics

and music. He began designing sound systems for local bars. He had a lucky break when he

joined up with the band Fat and begin making their sound equipment. While working with them,

he met the members of KISS and began making custom guitars with intense and very complex

special effects. He loved this work and the fact that people loved him and his effects, but John

wasnt a fan of the rock and roll culture or the sporadic pay that sometimes left him in fancy

hotels, and other times in the streets. Due to this, he quit working for KISS and begin

engineering in a toy company, furthering his relationship with the one he called Little Bear,

and even having a son with her. After some major toy company successes, John Robinson began

working himself up the company ladder until he had reached manager status and started to

realize that he wasnt good at managing people. He dropped out of manufacturing completely

after that and began his own auto shop servicing mainly wealthy customers and their Land

Rovers (his favorite car). After some mishaps, his company thrived and he was finally able to

provide a good life for his son and his new wife (his first marriage with Little Bear ended after

the birth of their son whom John called Cubby). It was after all this that John Robinson made a
psychologist friend who finally provided insight to some of the challenges he faced when he

mentioned the traits of Aspergers he had observed in John.

The most meaningful things I learned from Look Me in The Eye all regarded living with

autism and how neurotypical people dont understand how complex the world is. I truly felt

moved and impacted when in the beginning John Elder was first trying to make friends. He

wanted to befriend a girl named Chuckie, and in his mind, the best way to go about it was to pet

her because he noticed that petting his poodle made them friends, so he believed petting Chuckie

should bring him a new friendship too. I read this part and had to pause for a minute and

contemplate that. For someone who isnt keen to picking up on social cues and mannerisms, that

must be SO confusing. Why is it that in our culture, petting a dog makes you friends, but petting

a person is wrong? Another example of this is near the end when he is discussing the automatic

questions that people keep on hand to break awkward moments. These questions often dont

elicit conversation the person is truly interested in, yet this polite speech is still one of the most

common forms of communication between acquaintances. I can see how if someone was not

equipped with this arsenal of impersonal questions and the knowledge of when to use which one,

it would be challenging to not only keep lasting friendships, but also to meet new people. I found

these examples provided me some of the best understanding of the world from the viewpoint of a

person with autism. As a neurotypical person, I never took the time to step back and observe just

how complex communication and human interactions are.

This book provided me a new perspective on the well-oiled machine that is society. When

youre an average member of society going about your day, keeping up pleasantries, and taking

the unspoken social cues from those around you, most people dont even stop to think. I was one

of those people until I read John Elder Robinsons account of his own life. Seeing how many of
those implied skills must be extensively taught to children and adults with autism for them to

function in the general population was eye opening. It has made me more conscious of these

unspoken rules in my own life. For instance, walking to class. No one discusses sidewalk

etiquette and there are no classes or manuals for walking. However, even with this lack of

explicit instructions, it seems every student understands that they should be staying to the right,

and that they only stray from that if they are passing by someone who is walking slow in order to

maintain the flow of foot traffic. No one discusses it, yet by the second week of school everyone

is following these trends. I cant imagine what life would be like living in a world where these

unspoken phenomena were not attainable to me. This book gave me a huge new respect for

people living life and learning to communicate with autism.

I would honestly recommend this book to anyone because it is very well written, tells an

amazing life story, and provides a new perspective on life for neurotypicals. More specifically

however, I believe that this book would be very beneficial to parents with a child recently

diagnosed with autism, or a teacher who has just had an autistic child placed in their classroom.

Look Me in The Eye doesnt portray Aspergers as a disability, but rather as an opportunity for

unique greatness with some challenges and speed bumps along the way. It highlights some of the

main factors and actions that can be associated with individuals with high functioning autism,

and more than anything, it provides readers a chance to step into the life of a person with autism

and see the problems that neurotypicals may never have consider as being challenges. Though

every person with autism is a uniquely different case, I feel this book could provide great insight

for things that go on inside the minds of some people with autism that may not be able to express

their thoughts and feelings as directly and profoundly as John Elder Robinson.