BBC News just published the heartwarming story of Donald Grey Triplett, an 82-year-old man living today in a small town in the southern United States. He was “Case 1” among 11 children examined by Baltimore psychiatrist Leo Kanner, who was studying a new kind of disorder not previously listed in the medical textbooks. This is the story of how autism began.
Donald Grey Triplett was born in 1933 in Forest, Mississippi, to Beamon and Mary Triplett, a lawyer and a school teacher. As a child he was withdrawn and never met his mother’s smile, but appeared at all times tuned into a separate world with its own logic. He had his own way of using the English language. While he could speak and mimic words, the mimicry appeared to overtake meaning and most often he merely echoed what he had heard someone else say.
Donald’s parents tried to break through to him, but got nowhere. He was not interested in playing with other children, and didn’t even look up when a fully-costumed Santa Claus was brought to surprise him. But his parents knew he was listening, and that he was intelligent. When he was two-and-a-half years old, he sang back Christmas carols he had heard his mother sing only once, with a perfect pitch, and he could recall the exact order of a set of beads his father had randomly laced on to a string.
However, in the 30’s, children who strayed too far from “normal” where put in institutions, and so was Donald, by order from the doctor. His parents was recommended to forget the child, and move on with their lives. But they did not forget him. Instead, they visited monthly, and about a year later they took him back home, and to see Dr Kanner in Baltimore.
Kanner was not sure how to diagnose Donald, because none of the ready-made psychiatric descriptions seemed to fit. But after several more visits from Donald, and seeing more children with similar behavior, he published his groundbreaking paper establishing the terms for a new diagnosis. He called it “infantile autism,” which was later shortened to just autism.
After Baltimore, Donald went back to Mississippi, where he spent the rest of his life. Donald is still alive today, healthy at 82. He lives in the house he grew up in, surrounded by a safe community, where everyone knows him. He has friends he sees regularly, a Cadillac to get around in, and pursues golf daily. Donald has traveled on his own all over the United States and to a few dozen countries abroad. He has a closet full of albums packed with photos taken during his journeys.
Donald is the picture of the perfectly content retiree, happy with his life. For that, his mother deserves enormous credit. She brought her boy home, and worked tirelessly to help him connect to the world around him, to give him language, to help him learn to take care of himself.
But importantly, it seems like the town itself played a major part in Donald’s excellent outcome. The 3,000 people of Forest, Mississippi, decided to accept him, and to protect him. The writers of the BBC article, John Donvan and Caren Zucker, claim to know this because when they first visited Forest and began asking questions about Donald, at least three people warned them that they would track them down and get even if they did anything to hurt Donald.
No man is an island, even a man born with autism. This inspiring story shows how the love, perseverance and caring from a family and community can ease the faith of autism, and give the gift of a fulfilling life.
Featured Image by unknown artist (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) via Wikimedia Commons.
