Tito Mukhopadhyay

Rajarshi "Tito" Mukhopadhyay (b. 1989, India) is a writer and poet who has been diagnosed with severe autism. Although he is almost completely non-verbal, Mukhopadhyay communicates his thoughts through his writings.

Early life

His mother, Soma, says that she left her career in chemistry and taught her son. She reports that doctors said he would never learn: "At first, they told us he was mentally retarded because he wasn't doing anything. He wasn't doing what a 3-year-old child should do. He did not respond. He did not do anything."Fact|date=November 2007 She recounts that she was told to keep him busy. Eventually, Tito learned to write proficiently and became the subject of intense media scrutiny in his native India.

Cure Autism Now

Cure Autism Now (CAN—now merged with Autism Speaks) brought Mukhopadhyay and his mother to the US so he could participate in scientific investigations. His mother has worked with CAN on a manual, for what she calls the [http://www.halo-soma.org/learning_methodology.php "rapid prompting method,"] in order to teach other parents her methods. Some members of the autistic community (many of whom are critical of any suggestions that autism can (or should) be 'cured') have criticized this collaboration.Fact|date=November 2007

Writings and insights

In his writings, Mukhopadhyay provides unique and reputedly unprecedented insights into autism, sharing his thoughts and feelings from a personal perspective. His first book, "Beyond the Silence: my life, the world and autism" (2000), is a collection of inspirational prose, poetry and philosophical texts.

He reflects on how autism affects his view of the world, explaining how interfering sensory perceptions lead to "a fragmented world perceived through isolated sense organs." His feeling of losing his body is perhaps typical of some autistic people, who seem to have little sense of their bodies. Often, his body rocks rhythmically, or he stands and spins or makes loud smacking noises. His arms sometimes fly in the air as if yanked by a puppeteer, or his fingers suddenly flutter. Of these symptoms, he writes "I am calming myself. My senses are so disconnected, I lose my body. So I flap. If I don't do this, I feel scattered and anxious."Fact|date=November 2007

"You should say autistics are the most evolved of humans. It is a recent mutation," Mukhopadhyay once joked during an interview. Demonstrating his awareness of speculation about the mysteries of autism, he asked the interviewer to "put the fun part, because it tells [about] the theory of mind."

Media sensation

Mukhopadhyay has been the subject of many news stories and scientific studies. Early reports from India led to his move to the United States. Several of his poems were published in the "National Geographic", the "New York Times and "Scientific American have published feature stories on him, and BBC has aired an "Inside Story" documentary about him. His book, "Beyond the Silence", which contain writings from when he was between eight and eleven years old, covers the first part of his life story and a special selection of his philosophical texts that were featured on BBC.

Experts have long believed that individuals with autism lack imagination and introspection. Lorna Wing, an autism researcher who has a child on the autism spectrum, explains that these qualities are in fact present but expression of them may be impaired. Autistics may appear to be uninterested in others and seem to lack empathy. At the time Tito's work first appeared, many believed there had been few if any autistic people who had been able to convey an understanding of the perceptions and experiences of life with autism.

Criticism

Criticism of Mukhopadhyay's supposedly unique gifts and his mother's teaching methods comes mainly from the autistic rights movement. Citing previously published poetry and philosophical writing by other autistic people, the movement stresses that Mukhopadhyay is not only "not" the first to reveal that autistic people think, feel and reason, but that Cure Autism Now, by promoting Mukhopadhyay and his work as a sort of marketed commodity, has deliberately chosen to ignore earlier autistic writers because they didn't fit a perceived or approved profile.Fact|date=November 2007

Publication

* "Beyond the Silence: my life, the world and autism", 2000, (released in the US as "The Mind Tree: An Extraordinary Child Breaks the Silence of Autism")

External links

* [http://www.halo-soma.org/ HALO] - Helping Autism through Learning and Outreach
* [http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125418&page=1 ABCNews.go.com] - 'Boy Sheds Light on Autism Mysteries' ABC News
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/14/60II/main536416.shtml CBSNews.com] - 'Breaking The Silence', CBS (July 16, 2003)
* [http://www.fathersnetwork.org/791.html?page=791&SESSION=75014b7eb134a53a078056baa0050f19&s=0 FathersNetwork.org] - 'A Boy, a Mother and a Rare Map of Autism’s World', Sandra Blakeslee, "New York Times" (November 19, 2002)
* [http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0503/feature1/online_extra.html NationalGeographic.com] - 'Mind Tree Poems', Tito Mukhopadhyay, "National Geographic" (March 2005)
* [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00051F89-6E42-10A9-A47783414B7F0000 SciAm.com] - 'A Transparent Enigma: Low-functioning autistics are not supposed to joke, write or creatively express a rich inner life. But then there's Tito Mukhopadhyay', Madhusree Mukerjee, "Scientific American" (June, 2004)
* [http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3811&fID=571 Researchchannel.org] , 'How Does the Autistic Brain Work?', University of California, produced (15 May, 2006)
* [http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/explore/show_03.html more about the video and transcript] from the Public Broadcasting Service