Owen Suskind was a three-year-old boy like many others, he did the same things children do at that age and he was fascinated by Disney movies. Until one day, without knowing why, he stopped talking. From one day to another he "disappeared" within himself, his family says and was diagnosed with regressive autism, a type of autism in which affected children begin to lose skills they had achieved so far and stop acquiring new ones.
He did not speak for years, but he memorized the lyrics of dozens of Disney movies, which became his only link with the outside world, the medium he used to communicate with his family. His life inspired a book written by his father and also a movie, 'The animated life', which tells the incredible story of Owen Suskind, a child with autism who spoke again thanks to Disney movies.
Regressive autism, what is it?
It is a subtype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that appears approximately between 18 and 30 months. According to some authors, between 25 and 30% of children diagnosed with ASD have this “regression” picture, which except for the moment it appears, there are no differences with autism itself.
Affected children show a loss of language and social skills they had previously achieved, that's why it's called regressive, because It is a "backward" process.
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the brains of children with regressive autism grow larger and are larger (6% older) than those of normotypic children of the same age or those of children who show symptoms previous and growing autism, what is called autism of early origin. It is the first neuropathological evidence that regressive autism is substantially different from other types of autism.
Disney movies, your world
Owen watched Disney movies over and over again. I spent hours ecstatic in front of the TV. One day, after remaining three years in silence, he said a strange word that his parents failed to understand. Later, they realized that he was repeating a dialogue from a scene from the movie "The Little Mermaid."
Weeks later, his father took a puppet of Iago, the parrot of "Aladdin", and had his first conversation with his son in years.
Owen I had memorized the dialogues of each movie, intonations, voices, and made them his own to communicate with his family, as well as with therapists and psychologists.
According to his father, Ron Suskind,
“For several years, Owen was a very silent child, excluded from society. People told me that we could not educate him, that he did not have much hope with him because perhaps he would never speak again; we would probably have to leave it in an institute. But, suddenly, we had it again, emerging again, as he says: 'A friend who found his inner hero.'
Owen explains his own experience with these words:
"I live in those characters and they live in me," he said. "It's something that echoes in me, it helps me with my own life, to find my place in the world."
His life inspired a book and a movie
His father, Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote a book about his son's life, a bestseller entitled "Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism." companions, heroes and autism), which also resulted in a film presented at the Tribeca Film Festival 2016. A documentary that tells Owen's life, from the first years, when he is diagnosed, when he graduates from school, when he leaves his parents' house, when he has his first girlfriend and when he finds work in a movie theater.
Currently, Owen is 25 years old and also likes recent Disney movies like 'Zootropolis' and 'Inside Out' ('Del Revés'), but his favorites are still the classics. His favorite, no doubt, is 'Aladdin'.
An incredible story that opened the door to a new form of treatment. The researchers began to study the usefulness of the affinity therapy to get people with autism out of their hearts when approaching their interests.
