There is always with autism treatment another Next Big Thing coming down the pike. Biomedical treatments. Sensory treatment. It's a fairly scary and unregulated world out there--one of the unfortunate quirks of having a developmental disability is that the treatments are behavioral and educational. Medication doesn't get at the core deficits. And there's always something new to work on--a game of Disability Whack-a-Mole. You think once this one particular skill comes in, it's all going to fall into place, but no, there are a hundred different skills, because relating to other mammals is so complex.

Right now I'm a Gutstein disciple: Gutstein is a psychologist with a background in family systems (I think), and his Big Insight is that autism is marked by a failure to engage in shared experiences and emotions. Which basically means my kid likes playing with me because I am a giant chess piece in the particular games she enjoys, not that she wants to spend time with me out of my me-ness, or because I make amusing quips or vote the same way she does. So he's developed this form of play therapy designed to show the child what exactly is to be gained from human interaction, that merely being around other people should be reinforcing in and of itself. It all makes perfect sense to me and fits with my intuitions about my child, so I found myself yesterday morning driving half an hour to go to someone's basement while they filmed me playing with my kid. For three hours. (That's actually not true: the therapist played with my kid for part of the time.)

Of all the evaluations I've watched or participated in, this one led to one of my scariest moments: they asked her if she wanted to play by herself or with me. What she really wanted to do was wander off and check out some toys on the other side of the room, but she did finally decide that being around me beat playing by herself. That time, anyway. Later on she'd had enough of me and decided she'd rather bang on the drums by herself than play with me.

It was an extraordinarily detailed evaluation, and it did get at some of the things that worry me, like when the therapist said, "I'm having trouble with that. That's too hard," and my daughter completely ignored her and continued doing the activity her way. For that matter, we were supposed to do some Simon says-type activities, and she completely ignored the fact that her overweight middle-aged mother was going to have trouble executing a somersault and then a cartwheel, despite my pleas. The therapist is very enthusiastic and cofident that this can help. Can't hurt, might make a difference. I was too scared to ask how much it's all going to cost. It can't be worse than the two years I spent making cakes out of quinoa and rice powder. Quinoa. Quinoa is one of my favorite words. That and amantadine, which is a medication that helps Parkinson's patients. Amantadine, amantadine. This is the forest primeval....