Monday, June 21, 1999
Aiming a lens at autism
TV producer's video diary of his son turns into show that shatters myths
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Like many dads, Robert Parish spent hours videotaping his young son.
|
ON THE AIR
|
|
•What: Come Back Jack
•When: 9 p.m. Tuesday
•Where: Channel 48
|
But for Mr. Parish, a free-lance TV producer, his hobby became a TV documentary on Jack's stunted development. The boy was lost in his own world, unable to communicate, before doctors diagnosed him with an autism spectrum disorder, or autism.
More importantly, his video diary provided a way to bond with Jack, now 6.
“It was painful for me not to do all the things with Jack that I did with my other kids, like tossing a baseball in the back yard,” says Mr. Parish, 48.
“I found that by putting the camera on him, we became close. I was able to capture and see his strong spirit. It was cathartic.”
His personal video odysssey has turned into a bigger mission of national scope — educating the American public and the medical community, through the broadcast of Come Back Jack on WCET-TV (Channel 48) on Tuesday. At least 75 other public TV stations will begin airing it in August.
The film documents how Jack was a typical kid his first year, but by his second year — after constant ear and sinus infections — was so withdrawn he couldn't blow out his birthday candles.
It shows Mr. Parish and his wife, Diane, fighting to find someone who could explain what was happening to Jack. It records their devastation at hearing the autistic diagnosis at age 3, in 1996.
“(Jack) is the brightest, smartest, most amazing little kid I know. He's the most lovable child, and it's all locked up in there,” Mrs. Parish says in the film. “We just have to find the one key that lets this flower bloom.”
The search ends
Their frustrating journey ended two years later, at the Language and Cognitive Development Center in Boston, where Jack learned to speak and understand verbal commands.
“We wanted no one to experience what we did. It took us two years to do meaningful therapy,” says the Terrace Park resident who worked for National Public Radio and ABC News before moving to Cincinnati in 1986.
“The documentary and our Web site (www.comebackjack.com) are designed for people to find the information they need quickly,”
Come Back Jack also shatters the myth that autistic kids are unreachable and helpless.
“Parents hear the diagnosis autism, and they think it's like a door slamming shut. Not all the kids in the (autism) spectrum are like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man,” says Mr. Parish, who has established a Jack Parish Foundation to fund educational and promotional programs for the new Kelly O'Leary Center for pervasive development disorders at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
The O'Leary Center was started in March out of the “negative experiences” of parents like the Parishes at Children's Hospital's inability to diagnose autistic spectrum disorders quickly, says center director Patty Manning-Courtney. It serves a growing number of children, about 100 a year (or two a week), diagnosed with some form of autism, she says.
The Parishes don't mention Children's in the film, simply saying they went to “a place ... where the evaluation was somewhat carelessly done.”
Dr. Manning-Courtney says Children's “recognizes, and is trying to improve upon how we make the diagnosis.”
She sees Come Back Jack as a “powerful teaching tool” for the medical community, particularly physicians who don't recognize autism disorders as quickly as possible.
“Come Back Jack is very impressive because it shows Jack's early life as a "normal' kid.It shows how a child can be so normal, then things change,” she says.
A common disorder
Nationally, about one in 500 children has pervasive development disorders, Dr. Manning-Courtney says.
“It's recognized that this disorder is much more common than thought three or four years ago.”
Nobody knows what triggers the “brain-based disorder,” she says. “We know (the cause) is not behavioral, and not emotional.”
Autism spectrum disorders are more common than cystic fibrosis or multiple sclerosis. Yet autism research receives less than 5 percent of the funding for those other diseases, she says.
“Robert Parish has done with one video what we've been trying to do for years — to raise local and national awareness,” she says. “I think the benefits from Come Back Jack will be reaped for years.”
Despite coast-to-coast TV commitments, Mr. Parish still has no sponsor for the film, which was made at a cost of $150,000. But that's not terribly important to the filmmaker, although he would like to compensate editor Sam Manavis of ManaVision Editorial in Dayton, Ohio.
“There was never a thought that we'd make any money on this. It was a labor of love. It was something I needed to do,” says Mr. Parish, who wrote and produced Channel 9's Al Schottelkotte's Spotlight Reports for Video Features here (1986-87), before free-lancing for Procter & Gamble, Frisch's Big Boy, ABC News, ESPN, NBA Inside Stuff and Dayton's WPTD-TV (Channel 16).
“Three years ago, there wasn't much information out there about spectrum disorders. And I never felt that any of it was terribly accurate,” he says.
“I almost had an obligation to my son — and I know this sounds silly — but also to the world in general, to show what kids in the spectrum are really like, and how hard they have to go to recover,” Mr. Parish says.
Family in on the act
Come Back Jack became a family affair. Sons Ryan and Graham composed and performed the theme song and guitar soundtrack. Both boys and Diane, their stepmother, helped dad shoot the video.
Mr. Parish provides minimal narration, with the continuity coming from his wife's sometimes tearful reflections on her son.
“I know he's going to be a totally typical kid. I know we'll get there. It's just going to take us some time,” Mrs. Parish says at the end of the film.
“Diane and I aren't bitter about this,” Mr. Parish says. “We fully expect Jack to be fine, but he may be a little quirky. And we plan to seek out the team that diagnosed him originally, and show them how they missed the boat on Jack.”
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. His column appears Monday and Wednesday. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.
