Drawing Her Out of Autism: Teen-ager’s struggle to communicate has been a family affair.
[By Tony Simmons in The News Herald.]
The world and all its mystery is opening for Camille Butchikas – or more accurately, Camille is slowly unfolding to the outside world like a butterfly from a chrysalis.
For years, the 14-year-old Panama City Beach resident was non-verbal and “tactile-defensive.” She wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t respond to others’ speech and couldn’t stand the touch of anything against her skin.
She would pour out shampoo bottles to try to keep her parents from washing her hair. She’d strip off her clothes as soon as they dressed her.
Doctors said she was autistic, a psychological and physiological condition characterized by a seeming disregard for external reality.
“The hardest thing is to get them to talk,” said George Butchikas, Camille’s father. “Most of them won’t do it because it’s too hard for them to process it.”
Autism impairs one’s ability to communicate and form relationships with other people, and usually becomes apparent within the first few years of life. It also can affect how one responds to sights, sounds and other sensations.
Some children with the disorder are mentally impaired, but about one third are “high-functioning” - meaning they have a normal or near-normal IQ.
Recently reported research by the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta shows that people with autism have more signal-receiving brain structures than those without the disorder. This may cause them to “be overpowered by the amount of information” coming into their brains, and could explain some abnormal behavior - such as a reluctance to look others directly in the face.
Dr. Manuel F. Casanova, lead author of a study published in the Feb.12 issue of the journal Neurology, said it’s possible autistic people look away to keep from being overpowered by information they receive when they look at someone eye-to-eye.
“The key is early intervention,” George said. “When the child is 3 or 4, the success rate is way up there. And the parents have to be dedicated. It’s so easy to let the child do inappropriate behaviors rather than correct them.”
Camille at 14 is a vastly different child from Camille at 3 - her age when doctors diagnosed her disorder.
Today, she can talk about almost anything. She creates fanciful artwork and attends mainstream middle school classes. She enjoys Judy Blume novels. She washes her own hair and picks her own clothes - and even has a favorite pair of Gap flair-leg jeans she would wear every day if her mom, Carolyn Cruise, would let her.
“Her biggest improvement has been her verbal skills and communication,” Carolyn said. “She had a 10-word vocabulary when she was about 5 years old. Now, her vocabulary is unlimited.”
But make no mistake: Camille is no less autistic than before. She still has problems communicating. Living outside her cocoon is the result of years of therapy and struggle on her part and that of her parents.
OUT OF HER SHELL
In 1990, 3-year-old Camille began behavior modification therapy under the care of graduate students at the Lovaas Center at the University of California at Los Angeles.
“They were instrumental in starting to get her to make eye contact, focus and respond to other people,” George said.
“They also teach the parents how to communicate with an autistic child. … Some people just can’t do it. They don’t have the assets or the time, or it’s just too hard to do.”
In 1992, Camille went to the Auditory Integration Center in Portland, Ore., for 10 days of “re-tuning” her inner ears. She had to wear headphones that exposed her to every pitch in the spectrum of human hearing.
“They had speech, occupational therapy and sensory integration - rubbing the skin, movements on a mat, working on coordination and stimulating her,” George said. “She is living proof of what can be done for autistic children with early intervention and therapy. We know that this works.”
“She didn’t like speech therapy,” Carolyn said. “She used to say, ‘Oh no, not speech again.’”
And don’t ask Camille about her routine. She’ll say, “I can’t remember.”
Camille’s day is structured, her schedule very strict. She’s in bed by9 p.m. and wakes on her own at 6 a.m. Her parents even keep her in summer school each year to maintain the school-day regimen.
“It’s a seven-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year commitment in the early stages,” Carolyn said.
Carolyn has been with George for nine years and has raised Camille like her own daughter. When she and George first started dating, Camille still didn’t speak. Now, Camille calls her “Mom.”
“I’ve seen her come a long way,” Carolyn said. “She’s learning to play the piano now.”
Carolyn doesn’t believe in using drugs to treat autism. Structure, commitment, discipline and love can do the job, she said.
“I won’t let anybody put her on any kind of medication,” she said. “The medicine she takes is vitamin therapy, B6 and magnesium. No Ritalin. She can be a typical teen, and we don’t have to put her on drugs.”
Back when Camille was still refusing to speak, Carolyn made a habit of asking Camille what she’d had for lunch at school. Carolyn would repeat the same question over and over, day-in and day-out.
Finally, one day, Camille yelled an answer: “Hot dog!”
“It was like a breakthrough,” Carolyn said. “She knew then that we weren’t going to give up on her.”
TAKING FLIGHT
Camille is on the A-B honor roll at Surfside Middle School, where she attends mainstream eighth grade classes for most of the day. She has two “varying exceptionalities” classes in language and science, and she has a full-time aide who helps her stay on task.
“She was the first autistic child mainstreamed in Bay County schools,” George said. “They kind of rolled the dice with me. If it didn’t work, we would have taken her out - but it took off.”
Camille’s favorite subject is art. She enjoys painting, and she likes to sketch teen-age characters in sassy fashions and poses straight out of Japanese-style cartoons. Her goal is to publish a book of her art and have it adapted to film. She calls the project “Camille’s Japanimations.”
“It’s my idea out of my mind,” Camille said. “It has romance, martial arts, magical girls, adventure, action, horror and comedy. No sexual situations. No crude language.”
Carolyn was concerned as each school year started that this year the children would not be as nice to Camille as they had been in the past. That didn’t happen, however.
“They’ve always been very supportive,” Carolyn said. “It’s just that the gap (between her interests and those of her classmates) is broader no win the past two years.”
Camille didn’t want to talk about her schoolmates. Sometimes they treat her like “a baby,” she said, or they act like she’s “a crazy girl.”
The topic made her uncomfortable. She got out of her chair and paced. She started talking about her animation plans instead. She likes “wacky monsters” like Pokemon and Digimon, she said. Pikachu is her favorite.
“I can draw any person or animal,” she said. “I would create hairstyles, eye colors, clothes, dresses and skirts. Kid shows, not just Loony Toons.”
Carolyn returned to the topic. As Carolyn talked, Camille picked up a broom that had been leaned against a wall and began twirling it.
“In first through sixth grade, she had a very close network of friends,” Carolyn said. “They used to fight to sit by her and fight to see who could come to her house. Now they’ve moved on to boys and makeup, and Camille is still working on art and the computer.”
This summer, after she turns 15, Camille will tackle a challenge many teens relish: her first summer job. George will put her to work at his restaurant, Angelo’s Steak Pit in Panama City Beach, and Camille will get a checking account and start buying her own art supplies.
Her response: “Oh, brother.”