“Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close” is a compelling film that follows a child named Oskar who goes on an incredible expedition in search of the owner of a key he found in his father’s closet. The movie does a phenomenal job at displaying the turmoil an autistic child can go through, especially with the loss of a loved one. The movie also does a tremendous job at showing the characteristics associated with autism. Oskar goes through a great deal of personal struggle and pain throughout the course of the film. Oskar’s closest friend, his father, dies in 9/11 and Oskar struggles immensely to recoup from his loss. Oskar’s father was a phenomenal father who truly understood Oskar and did everything in his power to cater to Oskar’s needs. Temple …show more content…
He not only struggles socially in ways most children do not, but he has lost a parent, which is truly a horrible thing for a child to experience. In “Best Practices’: Learning to Live with Asperger’s,” an article that follows Kristen and David Finch, NPR interviews the couple to discuss David Finch’s discovery of his Asperger’s. In the interview, Kristen Finch says, “I knew that he didn’t love to go out; I knew that he didn’t love barbecues and things like that. But before the quiz that it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it, it was that he found it very difficult to do these things” ("'Best Practices': Learning To Live With Asperger’s: NPR", 2012). I thought this was important to note because it wasn’t that Oskar simply didn’t enjoy things, such as swinging at the start of the film, but it was that he found them incredibly difficult to do. Oskar did not just avoid subways, bridges, and loud noises because he did not like them, but because he found them immensely difficult to deal with. In the article by NPR, it also notes that David Finch would put on “swim goggles and a bathing suit” just to give his children a bath ("'Best Practices': Learning To Live With Asperger’s: NPR", 2012). This is another great example that illustrates autistic behavior and further exemplifies that autistic people don’t just do weird things that are different just because, but rather as a means of combatting the fears they struggle with. Oskar is different than
Leo Kanner (1943) believes autism is a result of emotional deprivation. He notes that parents of autistic children are intellectually and analytically oriented, but lack emotional warmth (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).Some psychodynamic theorist believe autistic children were born normal, but became autistic after experiencing painful interactions with hostile or cold parents (Hansell & Damour, 2008). The term autistic implies a failure to effectively relate to the environment. Autistic individuals are perceived as elusive and distant (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009). Behavioral programs are most effective with autistic children and are used to teach them language, communication skills, self-care, and adaptation to the community (Hansell & Damour, 2008).
In the article, “How to Speak Asperger’s,” by Fran Goldfarb and Guthrie Devine, the authors contend that learning to communicate with people with Asperger’s Syndrome is an important skill. The authors introduce the article by providing a narrative about Goldfarb’s son. The point of her narrative is that communication is misunderstood with people with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). The author, Fran Goldfarb, explains how her son misunderstands communication with his teachers, and how punishment is ineffective, because of his Asperger’s. The authors start by explaining why communication is very complex. To begin with, people with AS struggle with communication, because of their lack of social cues. They tend to miss irony, humor, and they take everything literally. That’s why people with AS don’t understand communication and everything is a struggle for them.
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of wonder" said Joseph Campbell, who had identified the basic pattern found in many heroic tales and narratives called the monomyth, or the hero's journey. Although nine-year-old protagonist, Oskar Schell from the 2011 movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close directed by Stephen Daldry, does not seem like the ordinary hero, he is definitely a heroic character and he goes on a hero's journey with the call to adventure, the crossing of the first threshold, and finally, the attainment of the ultimate boon.
Socially, children with autism have a lot of difficulty with peers as they do not express as much empathy or social involvement as their classmates. Baron-Cohen (2002) refers to children with autism preferring less involved social interaction, saying that “(children)often engage in “parallel play” at the edge of a group rather than joining in cooperative play”
Autism is a very complex disorder that deals with social behavior. People with Autism can have many different stages of Autism ranging anywhere from high functioning (people that act more normal and have less noticeable symptoms), moderately functioning (people with autism that are more noticeable than people who are high functioning, tend to have more ticks, but can cope and adapt more than low functioning), and low functioning (people with autism that more often than not do not talk, more noticeable symptoms, more ticks, and have a hard time copping and adapting). With there being
The week before he brings in the interview, he brings in his cat and shows that they can fall from great heights without hurting themselves because they make their body into a parachute. The reader can see that not only this but many other actions of Oskar’s show that he is attempting to figure out a way to justify his dad’s death but at the same time find closure. Oskar is obviously alluding this special power of cats to his father, imagining that his father fell out of the building and would have been able to survive the fall if he was like a cat. The reader knows this because we see a picture that Oskar obsesses over of a man falls off a building with the same shape of the cat when they fall, only upside down. Oskar cannot think about anything else but his father, and this is shown by literally all of his actions. He also cancels his appointments and misses school to travel all over the boroughs of New York with strangers to find a match to a key he finds in his dad’s study, instead of asking his mother. The reader sees Oskar struggle with his dad’s death, but never in this type of
Mastering social skills and interaction is a challenge for children living with autism. Autistic children often do not play with other children. Part of this is noticed during the early developmental stages of childhood. Autistic children are often referred as off in a world of their own, unaware of people or events around them. Children with autism have difficulties in verbal and with non-verbal communication, social interactions and leisure activities. Autistic children have sensory disorders that affect how they interact with objects and people around them. They possibly will experience sensitivities in the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. “Many children with autism have unusual sensitivities to sounds, sights, touch, taste and smells. High-pitched intermittent sounds, such as fire alarm or school bells, may be painful to these children. Scratchy fabrics and clothing tags may also be intolerable, and some children have visual sensitivities to the flickering of fluorescent lights (autism-society).” The lack of social skills can create behaviors in autistic children.
Moreover, Christopher cannot understand other people’s emotions and many other things, so, therefore, he struggles with numerous problems that a person without Asperger Syndrome would not experience. The train station is exceptionally hard for him to travel through, which is proven when he states,“... the back of someone's jacket touched my knee and I felt sick and I started groaning really loudly and the lady on the bench stood up and no one else sat down” (Haddon 175-176). A reader would not have as many problems traveling through a train station, so, therefore, it is interesting to see Christopher’s point of view. In addition, albeit Christopher’s condition inducing him to make most of his decisions, the novel’s central purpose is to not explore Asperger Syndrome because there is not much focus put on his condition and the words “Autism” and “Asperger Syndrome” are never used.
Another trait he observed in the four children was that they had a certain interest that they were obsessed with in a sense and it dominated their conversations with other people. He called the condition “autistic psychopathy” he said it was a personality disorder that’s main symptom was social isolation. Asperger’s wasn’t widely known until 1981. Children with Asperger’s (AS) will get a huge amount of information about whatever their favorite subject is. These people who have AS aren’t able to always control the volume of their voice based on the environment surrounding them, e.g., libraries, movie theaters, etc. Also, a wide selection of children with AS are very active as young kids. But then as a young adult they begin to be depressed or anxious.
Oskar Schell was nine years old when his father was tragically taken from him by two jetliners flown by terrorists. This was especially unfortunate for him as his father seemed to be the only person that fully understood how Oskar’s Aspergers affected him and could use that to keep Oskar in a state of growth. Thomas Schell, Oskar’s father, would assign Oskar ‘reconnaissance missions’ in which the young boy had to converse with strangers and do other tasks in order to grow his social skills and get him out of his shell. This was the point at which the class noticed that Oskar’s father seemed to be such a great father to make up for the fact that his own father was absent for his entire life. This moves onto the analysis of Thomas Schell Sr.
A man and his brother walk down the terminal in an airport. They engage in a heated argument over whether they should board an airplane for Los Angeles. The older brother complains about taking an airplane and fears for his life, telling his brother about the crashes that every airline has had. The younger brother becomes annoyed and tells him that every airline has crashed at one point or another. To this, the older brother exclaims, “Qantas never crashed.” Upset at his obstinacy and refusing to fly to Australia just to travel to Los Angeles, the younger brother attempts to pull the older. He responds in the only way he knows—by
In the book The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time, by Mark Haddon, a boy named Christopher Boone suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. Throughout the book Christopher tries to find the killer of his neighbor's dog Wellington, but it turns into a quest about finding the truth about his parents. Since Christopher has Asperger he suffers from mental and emotional challenges. Christopher suffers from emotional isolation because of his social skills, his misunderstanding of others, and he doesn't think like a normal person.
There was forever a peculiarity that I was not blind to, a certain strangeness that grew increasingly and often times embarrassingly pronounced the more I became aware of the rigors of social norms. His whole existence spoke of an inner duality, a cosmic unbalance that resulted in his inherent oddity.
I find that the movie portrayed an accurate representation of someone who has autism. The movie is relatively accurate to what my grandmother goes through with taking care of a child with autism.
The documentary of Autism: The Musical showcases children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families throughout a twenty two week program ending with a live performance. The documentary not only highlights the growth the children experience socially and emotionally throughout the program, but the challenges faced by the families and the strategies they employ to overcome them. There are five children focused on over the course of the documentary, Neil, Lexi, Henry, Adam, and Wyatt. Each child is at a different place on the spectrum therefore each family is effected differently by it. In fact each family can be seen at a different stage of acceptance ranging from sock, denial, anger, loneliness, sadness, to acceptance (Autism & Your Family, 2015). Lexi’s father Joe nicely describes some of the stages he experienced starting with denial which he said ended up taking over his whole life for a period of time, a period he describes as fix it mode, then depression because the parent realized that no amount of money or wishing can change the fact that the child has ASD and will always be living with it and finally comes acceptance.