ABSTRACT
The final case and parting image is a wondrous drawing created by Rosie, who, as a fifteen-year-old, captures the essence of both the challenging and creative sides of the spectrum condition (Figure 20.1). Swinging for many children on the spectrum is a primal act that affords the airy freedom of unfettered movement and satisfying self-stimulation. Dangling off a trapeze is a riff from this pastime, one that is familiar to anyone acquainted with children on the autistic side of the spectrum. Like many others, this child was lulled by such kinetic movement, and her joy requires no analysis. Now a grown woman who was cured from her autism by almost a lifetime of analysis and self-determination, Rosie became a mother, a grandmother and a New York-based professional artist. In consenting to be the book’s finale, she preferred that in conveying the vagaries of her childhood, her art should stand on its own and speak for itself. I have honoured that request by keeping my comments brief. The epilogue is meant to transition from this long and perhaps academic read to an evanescent moment, one fixed in time and space that will hopefully resonate beyond the book’s ending. Rosie’s only remark about the drawing was the comment ‘I just couldn’t get the hands right in those days’— ever the self-critical artist.
