A Friend Like Henry

by Nuala Gardner

  At this, Dale responded contentedly, “All right, Henry,” and off he trotted to his bedroom.

  We sat bemused, thinking there was still a battle ahead of us, but Dale came back down actually dressed in his pajamas—something he had never done before. He had even attempted to do up the buttons, although they were endearingly misaligned. He looked at his dog a moment, then said firmly, “Henry, bedtime. Come to bed.”

  Jamie and I sat there, stunned, and then Jamie found his voice—his own this time. “Goodnight, son.”

  Another all-time first followed when Dale said, “Goodnight, Dad”—finally responding on our terms.

  This was so good to hear that I took a chance myself, saying, “Goodnight, Dale.”

  The resulting “Goodnight, Mum” was the sweetest music ever to reach my ears.

  6

  The Kick

  From that memorable day when Henry found his voice, his power seemed almost miraculous: Dale would do virtually anything his dog “asked.”

  The very next morning after we had discovered the voice, I seized the opportunity myself, anxious to see whether Dale would respond to me using it. As usual, Dale was running late and his school bus was about to arrive. Normally if I tried to interrupt and hurry him along, he would get angry, so instead on this morning Henry asked him, “Dale, put on your shoes and coat—I can hear the bus coming.” I did my best to emulate the same deep and refined tone that Jamie had used and was astonished to find that Dale immediately got himself ready and was waiting with Henry at the door by the time the bus pulled up outside.

  When Dale arrived home, I checked his school diary as usual to see what he had done that day. I did this to try to encourage him to tell me himself, but most times I got one-word answers or he would take great exception, exclaiming crossly, “Don’t say school.”

  Today, however, once Dale had settled down to play, with Henry at his side, I cautiously approached with the diary in my hand and asked in Henry’s voice, “Dale, what did you do at school today?”

  Without missing a beat, Dale replied definitely, “Drama, Henry.”

  “Dale, what’s drama?” Henry continued, on a roll now. “Is it fun?”

  “Yes, Henry, it’s good fun. We go to islands in a boat.”

  “Dale, did you not get wet?”

  “No, funny Henry, it was pretend. We play at pretend at drama.”

  I found that as long as I followed the usual rules for talking to Dale—for example, keeping things simple—with Henry’s help I could have very basic little three-way conversations like this. Despite my excitement at this development, however, I was concerned about whether or not this was an appropriate way to communicate with Dale. When Jamie came home, I told him how well Dale had connected to the voice, but we both agreed it would be sensible to get advice before we continued to use it.

  Fortunately, a speech therapist named Christine Cuthbert, who worked with Dale at St. Anthony’s, was due to make a home visit. She was brilliant at her job and had implemented an Odyssey drama program at the school which really did relate to all the children. She was also using a speech therapy program called Social Use Language Program (SULP) that was specifically designed for autistic children, where phonic and picture characters were used to illustrate the rules of social language. With character names like Listening Lizzie, Butting-in Betty, and Looking Luke, the program worked really well with Dale and the other children and ironically was similar to the technique we had devised long ago with the Thomas trains.

  I certainly didn’t want to compromise the wonderful work Christine was doing with Dale at school, and so when she arrived at the house, I explained the situation regarding Henry and was greatly relieved by her advice. Knowing I was very “tuned in” to Dale’s autism, she said, “As long as you use this technique constructively and responsibly, go for it.” She felt we had found a means to communicate with Dale that he was comfortable with, and we could obviously aim to wean him off Henry’s voice as he progressed over time. I assured her this would be our ultimate objective and that meanwhile we would be careful in how we used the voice.

  Soon after this meeting, in the summer of 1995, Jamie and I attended a conference on autism at which Jim Taylor was one of the speakers. When we managed to corner him to ask what he thought of our unusual discovery, he told us, “I’m not surprised. A third party can reduce the anxieties associated with one-to-one conversation.”

  While Jim had never come across a talking dog before, he had been party to a situation at Struan House where a worried young boy was only able to tell Jim what was wrong by turning his back and picking up a telephone to speak to him. They were both in the same room, but this indirect means of communication allowed the boy to express himself without all the non-verbal pressure that is involved in a face-to-face conversation.

  We understood exactly what Jim meant. Henry had become Dale’s telephone; with his unthreatening face and eyes, he was not making the type of social demands on Dale that a person would. He had also become Dale’s first real friend, teaching him how to be successful in a relationship without all the pressure that would come with a human friend.

  When we got home, we saw how Jim was right. If we used Henry’s voice, Dale would look at the dog’s face, with correct eye contact and proximity to Henry, whereas when we spoke as ourselves, he either avoided looking at us or got right in our faces as before.

  In these early days of the voice, I became virtually hoarse from talking through Henry, progressing from fleeting moments of interaction to almost constant three-way conversations. These included doing homework with Dale, playing with him, and reading bedtime stories. Henry would pay dutiful attention throughout, cocking his head from side to side, as if intrigued by the sound of “his” voice. For my part, such was Henry’s involvement that it felt as though he had indeed become my second child. Tantrums with Dale still happened, but not as often or for as long, because Henry could talk him through his frustration and reassure him more quickly than ever Jamie or I had been able to do. When Dale was almost seven years old, he himself poignantly confirmed his appreciation of Henry to me: “I love my soft, cuddly dog. He’s beautiful. If I didn’t have him, I would be crying and sad for a long time.”

  Another really encouraging change around this time was in Dale’s drawings. He had constantly drawn Thomas and the other trains in the past, but now they were given obvious different facial expressions—happy and sad. What surprised us even more was that even though he still struggled to give us eye contact, he would draw the trains looking directly at each other; in other drawings to follow, Dale was starting to introduce figures as well as trains, including perhaps himself and Henry, showing signs that his imagination was starting to improve.

  As Dale’s seventh birthday approached, we tried to get him used to the idea that his age was going to change and reminded him of all the fun we had had on Henry’s first birthday. This seemed to help a lot, as did the fact that the school was working on the problem, too—children’s birthdays in the unit were used as a social learning time for all of them as far as possible with a few mainstream children joining in as well. The teacher asked us to supply a birthday cake for Dale, and as he was also going to have a small family party at home, I let him choose a Thomas the Tank Engine cake for school and a Dougal one for home, after the Magic Roundabout character.

  All in all, I think everyone’s concerted efforts paid off because when Dale’s birthday finally arrived, he happily trotted out to the school bus, looking forward to his party. I gave the escort girl the bag with his cake in and then noticed that one of the other boys in the bus, who had severe autism, was in a sulky mood.

  Trying to cheer him up, I told him, “Raymond, be happy—it’s Dale’s birthday today and he’s got a cake for you all to share.”

  Raymond was unimpressed. His firm and disappointed reply was, “Oh no, it will be a train,” and he looked even more unhappy as they all drove off.

  It was ironic that even other ch
ildren with autism were bored with Dale’s obsession, and perhaps little wonder that he had no friends. We tried to help him with this by resurrecting our Boring Bertie stories, but it was still difficult to get him to understand an abstract concept like boring.

  He also had trouble understanding various words he would hear other children use at school, such as hate. He thought this was something you would say when things were not going your way and so would exclaim, “I hate you,” if one of his trains fell off its track. And no matter how hard we tried to demonstrate “love,” particularly at night to try to settle him down, it was still too advanced a concept for him to grasp.

  We knew Dale wouldn’t understand that our gift to him for his seventh birthday was given with love, but we thought he would at least like it. Mindful of his obsession with transport, we got him a tire swing for the garden, thinking this would give him the pleasure of having a car wheel as well as a swing. How wrong could we be? Dale was completely horrified and flew into a tantrum because “Tires belong on cars.” We had to cover the entire thing with a big sheet as he wanted nothing to do with it and would not even let his two young cousins, here for his birthday celebrations, play on it. Such was his wrath that he drew a picture of the swing and put a large teacher’s cross through it, adding on an accompanying piece of paper the words “No, Mum and Dad.”

  We nevertheless managed to have a fun time as Granda George diffused the situation with a game of pin the tail on the dog—Henry being at a safe distance of course. Dale participated well, especially in waiting for his turn, and was sufficiently recovered from his tantrum to appreciate the small gift of another toy car later presented to him by Henry, who was proudly sporting a cluster of balloons on his collar, with the car attached.

  Everyone sat as I cut up the Dougal cake, and then Dale opened his other presents, one of which was a memorable dog-themed game named Fleas on Fred, which he really liked and learned to play right away with his cousins and me.

  So, despite the swing disaster, all went well—until the moment when Dale, while helping Granny Madge clear up in the kitchen, suddenly let out a piercing scream. He was hopping around as though in real pain, and I hurried to check his bare foot, only to find a small piece of curly lettuce stuck to the underside: he was clearly less than taken with the strange sensation it gave him. Although we knew it wasn’t sore, he was really upset and would not be comforted, so my mum suggested, “Pop a Mickey Mouse band-aid on it and see if that calms him down.” I had used such band-aids on him in the past if he cut or hurt himself, even if it was just a tiny scratch, and they had seemed to help. Fortunately, this time was no exception and a major tantrum was once more averted by Mickey.

  This gave me an idea. Jamie and I had decided we would have to change the tire on the swing for a normal seat, but I thought as a last resort I would try to enlist the help of Henry and Mickey. Although pretty much redundant since Thomas had come into Dale’s life, the large Mickey Mouse doll was still sitting at the foot of his bed.

  The next day, Dale came home from school as usual, little knowing what was in store. Henry suggested excitedly to him, “Come on, Dale, let’s go and play in the garden,” and we all went outside. Dale shrieked in dismay at the sight of the now uncovered swing with Mickey strapped to it. I quickly ran over and started frantically swinging the wretched mouse all over the place, much to the delight of Henry, who leaped around barking as he tried to grab hold of Mickey’s leg. While this madness unfolded, Dale at least stopped screaming and looked on dubiously. Henry then took it upon himself to tell Dale of all the fun he was having: “Whee! Go, Mickey. Push him to me, Mum.” My young boy finally found his sense of humor and began to enjoy the spectacle—so much so that Henry continued with great glee, “Mum, take Mickey off. It’s not his swing, it’s Dale’s.” Sure enough, Dale was by now so happy that I was able to leave him, Mickey, and Henry playing together with the swing. When Dale jumped onto the tire, Henry jumped too and shrieks of laughter echoed around the neighborhood.

  Later, when Jamie was home, Dale forced something onto his lap as he sat trying to read the paper. It was another picture of the tire swing, this time with just a big teacher’s tick beside it.

  Despite the regular little breakthroughs via Henry and the intensive education Dale was receiving at school and at home, we knew he still needed as much integration and socialization as possible, preferably among his peers locally. In August 1995, because Dale was already familiar with the church environment and enjoyed Sunday school, he joined the Anchor Boys at Jimmy and Dorothy’s church. Fortunately, this group was led by the same lady who ran Sunday school, so Dale already knew her. We still suspected, however, that he might have a problem with the fact that she and her daughter would now be carrying out a different role; not only that, they would also be in a church hall that was being used for something other than Sunday school. Many people with autism have difficulty seeing those they know outside of a familiar setting and do not always learn from previous experience; they struggle with lateral thinking and the application of what they have learned from one situation to another. We had witnessed this trait ourselves with Dale one day when he had become extremely upset at seeing his teacher Paula at Hillend Nursery. As far as he was concerned, she belonged in the PSLU and he could not comprehend how she could be anywhere else.

  As always, therefore, careful preparation was paramount and so Jimmy and Dorothy took Dale along to see the Anchor Boys in action before he joined the group properly. Knowing it would be difficult to get him to wear the uniform, they explained to him how you could tell the boys were Anchor Boys because they all wore bright-red jackets with an Anchor Boy badge. The leader, who was a natural teacher with a special affinity for Dale, was very understanding and said it didn’t actually matter if Dale didn’t want to wear the uniform; it was more important that he settled in successfully. But because we wanted to reinforce to him that he was no different from the other boys, we thought it would be worth trying to get him to wear it. We told him, “Dale, all the other children will be the same, so that’s all right.” We then had a rehearsal with the jacket at home, where Henry informed Dale approvingly, “Dale, with your red jacket on, you’ll look like Jealous James.” This had the desired result. Dale pulled on the jacket and ran outside to his running area, where he pretended he was indeed Jealous James. Henry joined Dale in his run and told him how good he looked in his red jacket, reassuring him that when he wore it to go to Anchor Boys, Henry would go along in the car with him and be waiting to take him home again afterward. “Dale, you’re becoming a big boy,” added Henry. “Like me.”

  And so the deal was struck. Off we all went to Anchor Boys, with our dog in tow. Henry was already known to the church minister and elders as he spent time there with Jimmy and Dorothy when they were looking after him for us, so he was afforded the privilege of being allowed into the church to wait for Dale. Thankfully, Dale responded to the leader’s gentle approach and settled in really well, even if he was understandably quiet at times. In this happy, well-structured environment, he gradually blended in with the other boys and began to learn from them how to adapt socially.

  This was a big step forward, but given the amount of input Dale had needed just to get to this stage, I was all too aware that he still had mountains to climb in terms of progress. He continued to have no awareness of other people’s feelings and emotions, let alone empathy, which was one of the most difficult concepts for a person with autism to grasp. Jamie and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that it would take years of specialized input to achieve even the most basic level of understanding in this area.

  One afternoon when Dale arrived back in the school bus, he seemed in a really good mood and happy to be home. Buoyed by this, I took a chance, saying, “Hello, Dale, how was school?”

  The fact that I had used my own voice was my downfall. With great disapproval, my son shouted, “Don’t say school.”

  Immediately under pressure to put things right, I made
my second mistake, one with which I was all too familiar. “OK, Dale,” I let slip, “we’ll talk about it later.”

  That did it. Dale reacted with a rage I had not seen in a long time. Knowing a violent tantrum was now inevitable, I tried to restrain and calm him, but with the strength of Goliath he broke away from me. He was crashing around holding his head, hands covering his ears, and before I could get to him, he started banging his head into the wall, screaming, “I hate you. Don’t say OK.” I desperately tried using Henry’s voice to reassure him, but he was too far gone.

  Henry by now was standing at the opposite end of the room, looking understandably anxious. I tried again. “Dale, it’s Henry. I’m scared—you’re frightening me.”

  Dale was having none of it and, to my complete horror, ran at his dog, with his school shoes still on, and gave him an almighty kick, screaming, “I hate you.”

  Poor Henry yelped and ran to the corner, where he lay down, bewildered.

  At this moment, I lost it. “Dale, that’s it, finished,” I yelled. “You are not going to make this dog’s life a misery.”

  Unused to seeing me at this level of anger, Dale sat down, moaning and crying as I checked Henry over and comforted him. Fortunately, he seemed fine, but I was not yet ready to be placated and shouted across at Dale, “I’ll take Henry back to Val’s.”

  Dale just rocked back and forth and echoed without understanding, “Back to Val’s.”

  Shortly afterwards, Jamie arrived home from work.

  “We need to talk in the kitchen,” I told him, as Dale whimpered in his chair, feeling very sorry for himself.

  I explained to Jamie what had happened and how I was really concerned for Henry’s welfare. “Dale might think he can take his anger out on his dog now,” I said, “physically, like he still does with me.”