The City Wire special report: Robert’s colors and Asperger’s Syndrome

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories on mental illness issues. Throughout 2010 The City Wire will attempt to post at least one story a month on this often hidden affliction.

Previous article in the series
• Mental illness hits one in five persons

story by Marla Cantrell
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He stands in front of a marker board drawing a trio of descending  green lines. The line on top is approximately 18 inches, the line beneath it 16 inches and the final mark is 14 inches.

He’s a thin man, wearing his jeans as high as waders on a fisherman. He erases the board and starts again, drawing and erasing the same design five more times in less than a minute. When he finishes, he picks up a Styrofoam cup with his name written on it in blue ink. It is Robert.

Robert, 39, has Asperger’s syndrome, which is a form of autism. He is one of 85 people attending a lecture on autism by Dr. Jason LaGory, from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, at the January NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) meeting in Fort Smith.

LaGory knows autism from the outside in. It’s the opposite for Robert.

“Part of the thing about people with Asperger’s is that they’re very observant, very visual,” Robert explained.

As early as four he was fixated by light.

“I remember a little night light, turquoise colored, and it had a little part of it was chipped or missing,” Robert says. “I’d touch it and feel the electric shock. But the color was so extremely pretty. I love the color turquoise.”

Even now, he tries to duplicate the color when he’s in bed at night. He moves his eyes quickly in the dark, left to right, right to left. When he does it right, he can see a bluish-purple color, fuzzy and feathery. It’s like a semi-circle, he says, like the arc on the letter “C.”

This is his life, electric and filled with color.

“My neighbor across the street had a Chevy Impala, a blue one, my next door neighbor had a Ford LTD, brown,” Robert says. “Ford Motor Division on the hubcaps, and I remember the tail lights and how they looked. They had little back up retainer lights that said LTD on the back of it.”

He remembers every car on the street but can’t name one friend from his childhood. Kids in his special education class moved a lot, from program to program or to other schools. Robert had trouble connecting. Outside of class there were bullies.

“I lost my dad when I was 11 and that was very traumatic,” Robert said. He swivels in his chair, taps his foot. “He got me an electric train set and got me interested in coins. I remember some of the other kids would pick on me a little bit, and boy, he would get instantly mad.”

Robert graduated from Northside in 1989. It was the second day of June. He wore a red outfit with tassles, he says, moving his hands beside both sides of his head to show how wide the mortarboard was.

Today, his life is full of projects.

“I cut keys,” he said. “I have a little hand saw at home. I can look at a key and then I can go home and re-cut it for my mom or my mom’s friends, my sister, or somebody.”

His room is a laboratory where amazing things happen.

“I’ve got lights and wires and things,” Robert says. “I’m doing series circuit stuff right now. I’ve got a shelf with a whole mess of lights, colored lights in the closet.”

He’s also a big fan of KHBS/KHOG — not the station, but the station’s transmitter tower. He’s built a replica, timing the flasher so the lights blink in time with those on the real tower. He can see the tower from his bedroom window and he watches it for hours. He likes the way it makes him feel.

But there are things that make him anxious. When he drives he often uses his hazard lights and blows his horn if someone is tailgating. He hears things other people don’t: a neighbor mowing in the middle of the night; traffic on the highway miles away; drivers passing by his house.

“It gets to the point where I can hear car radios outside blasting and blaring,” Robert explained.

Food is hard for him. He’s finicky, spending weeks eating macaroni and cheese, then switching to hamburgers, then eating club crackers until he can’t stand them anymore. He has trouble in group settings, especially with girls. He asks a lot of questions, he says. He tries to be friendly. He doesn’t mean anything by it.

“I know at this day and age that people have to be protective,” he says. “One incident of the thing that happened in Little Rock, about the anchor lady, Anne Presley (who was murdered in 2008). I just was torn up over that. I was hoping she’d heal up better and she passed away. … I hope that guy pays. You know, he’s not going to be able to go into heaven because of going against the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou salt not kill.’”

It’s hard, not being understood. He wishes people knew more about Asperger’s syndrome.

“I don’t like it when people have a lack of understanding and have negative, hateful attitudes,” he says.

Still, he thinks his life is wonderful.

“I think I have a gift,” Robert says, “And I’m grateful to God for it.”

ABOUT ASPERGER’S
Robert’s condition is not as severe as many with Asperger’s. He’s able to deal with the syndrome fairly well, but says he does get anxious and depressed at times. He attends a day program called New Beginnings at Western Arkansas Guidance and Counseling in Fort Smith and said it helps him develop better social skills. The group of approximately 16 adults are working on self-esteem issues.

Lagory, the UAMS doctor, said Robert’s problems are typical for someone who is in the high-functioning spectrum of the disorder. His interest in duplicating the flashing lights from the television tower is not as strange as it seems. Lagory said he’s seen young children fixated on unusual objects like satellite dishes and nut crackers.

No one knows how many Arkansas children have Asperger’s syndrome. LaGory said there is a study underway at Arkansas Children’s Hospital to track that percentage.

But there are numbers for autism as a whole. The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates 1 in 110 children in the United States have some form of the disorder. Boys are five times more susceptible than girls. Ethnicity doesn’t play a role, and neither does income.

The lifetime cost to care with for someone with an Autism Syndrome Disorder is estimated to be approximately $3.2 million.

LaGory said the prognosis is better for those who are treated early. Pediatricians should be doing screening children periodically.  Symptoms can show up before a baby turns one.

Parents can learn more about autism at ArkansasAutism.org.