In a Different Key: The Story of Autism Read Free

have both lived with autism in their own families.”
—ROBERT MACNEIL , former anchor and cofounder of PBS NewsHour
    “This one volume captures the textured and sometimes turbulent story of autism in all of its facets: as a scholarly and scientific endeavor, as a political and legal enterprise, as a social movement. Most especially it embeds these developments within the stories of people whose lives defined and shaped the course of autism. In a Different Key is authoritative and utterly absorbing.”
— JUDITH FAVELL , past president, Developmental Disabilities Division, American Psychological Association



Copyright © 2016 by Caren Zucker and John Donvan
    All rights reserved.
    Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. www.crownpublishing.com
    CROWN is a registered trademark and the Crown colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Names: Donvan, John (John Joseph) 1955– author | Zucker, Caren (Caren Brenda) 1961– author.
    Title: In a different key: the story of autism / John Donvan and Caren Zucker.
    Description: New York: Crown Publishers, [2016]
    Identifiers: LCCN 2015024706 | ISBN 9780307985675 (hardback)
    ISBN 9780307985682 (ebook)
    Subjects: LCSH: Autism spectrum disorders. | Autism spectrum disorders—History. | People with disabilities. | BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Psychopathology / Autism Spectrum Disorders. | PSYCHOLOGY / History. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / People with Disabilities.
    Classification: LCC RC553.A88 D67 2016 | DDC 616.85/882—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015024706
    ISBN 9780307985675
    eBook ISBN 9780307985682
    Cover design by Christopher Brand
    v4.1
    a

For Helen and Frank, for the words,
    and Edna, for the spark .
    —JD
    For Jonah, Molly, Mickey, and John,
    and Mom and Dad, for everything you taught me .
    — CZ

PREFACE
    T he men were crying too. All around the theater. In the balcony. In the orchestra seats. On the stage, off to one side, the show’s host, Jon Stewart, was seen bringing the back of his hand to his cheek, and swiping at it. Stewart was due to step back on, but for the time being, he joined with the audience, standing and clapping, and letting the moment last—this tearful, joyful ovation for the kid and the singer in the spotlight, whose duet had just topped everything.
    By 2012, Night of Too Many Stars was a New York fixture, an every-eighteen-months benefit for autism, created by Robert and Michelle Smigel. They were close friends of Stewart’s, but more important they were the parents of a teenager named Daniel, who had a most challenging form of autism. When Daniel was younger, and at the point where the Smigels realized they could never give him the ability to speak—or alter most of the other lasting limitations to his independence—they figured out what they could do. Robert, a longtime writer for and performer on Saturday Night Live , knew almost everybody in comedy. Michelle was a superior organizer and arm-twister.
    The first time out, in 2003, by getting their friends to help them put on a show, they raised just under a million dollars for programs that would help people like Daniel get along in life. By 2012, the money was up to eight figures, and the stars invited to perform considered it an honor to be asked. They were big names—from George Clooney to Tina Fey to Tom Hanks to Chris Rock to Katy Perry.
    It was Katy Perry’s duet, on that night in October 2012, that brought the house to tears. The song was “Firework,” one of her biggestsingles ever. But it was the eleven-year-old girl who played piano and sang with her who sparked the outpouring of emotion. Jodi DiPiazza, diagnosed with autism just before turning two, had discovered music early, practiced the piano relentlessly, and idolized Katy Perry. Sitting at a massive baby grand, with Perry standing opposite, Jodi