The other week I was visiting Glasgow for four days for its Celtic Connections Music Festival. The following is my account of a disturbing scene while breakfasting in a Holiday Inn Hotel.

I saw a couple in their, I would say late 30’s – early 40’s and their, I would say 10 -11 year old son having breakfast on a nearby table. The parents were sitting opposite each other and the son, initially sitting next to his father. Both parents were dressed with outdoor coats, the father with his flat cap. The son wasn’t wearing his outdoor coat.

Where’s the boundary between child neglect and abuse? A perspective on autistic behaviour.

I was visiting Glasgow for four days for its Celtic Connections Music Festival. The following is my account of a disturbing scene while breakfasting in a Holiday Inn Hotel.

I saw a couple in their, I would say late 30’s – early 40’s and their, I would say 10 -11 year old son having breakfast on a nearby table. The parents were sitting opposite each other and the son, initially sitting next to his father. Both parents were dressed with outdoor coats, the father with his flat cap. The son wasn’t wearing his outdoor coat.

The whole scene would go unremarked but for the fact that for the whole 30 – 40 minutes or so it took me to eat my breakfast, both parents never spoke to each other once, being immersed in their smart phones. Nor, to my complete disbelief, did they speak with their son, except for one brief ‘instruction’. I assume the father had told his son to leave the table to fetch some paper and pencil to keep him occupied, because shortly after the son left the table and returned with two sheets of plain white A4 paper and a pencil. On his return he sat next to his mother, facing me.

I began wondering when the boys parents were going to converse with each other but more critically with their son. It never happened! I became utterly fascinated by the non-interaction amongst all three, despite the son’s occasional furtive glance to his father, sitting diagonally opposite him.

Reporting it in phases:

The critical features of my observation were that the son:
• sat in a huched position, with his head downcast
• glanced infrequently sideways through the corner of his eyes round the room and to his father: watching the world furtively
• took his first sheet of paper and appeared to draw four lines round the edge of the paper, with his right hand
• held his head close to the paper while drawing
• had an awkward grip of the pencil
• seemed to ponder for a short while then cast aside the first sheet
• accidently dropped the second sheet on the floor as he went to pick it up it up with his right hand
• he picked it up from the floor with his left hand

• turned the paper to portrait mode and drew about 4 vertical lines, away from himself starting from the bottom of the page
• re-oriented the paper to landscape mode and drew about 7 vertical lines,starting at the top of the page towards himself
• started drawing something in the resulting cells of the grid

By now I was utterly intrigued as to what he might be drawing, but couldn’t see from where I was sitting. I contrived to view his picture by walking past their table to refill my cup of coffee from the self-serve machine. As far as I could see by trying to observe unobtrusively what he had drawn; he had filled in the first three top left cells, the first two with ‘primitive’ family figures, one cell with only one figure in, another with three figures. (I couldn’t make out the third cell).

At this point I left the breakfast room, with mixed feelings. Firstly angry that two parents could place greater value on interacting with their smart phones than with each other or their son. Secondly, I faced the bystander’s dilemma: to intervene to stop this at best neglectful or at worst abusive parental behaviour, or to walk on by and do or say nothing. Regretfully I took the non-interventionist option and felt awful.

In my opinion the son displayed several characteristics of autistic behaviour. I would argue that he was almost certainly drawing with his non-adept hand (position of head, hand grip and picking up fallen sheet of paper with his left hand). But who was clearly exhibiting autistic, self-absorbed behaviour? The parents of course. Those who argue that autism is a property of the individual (child) and not a consequence of a particular type of interaction, have to answer the question of whether the boy’s parents, at worst created his autisic behaviour or at best contributed to it. If their mode of behaviour was a reflection of how they’ve always interacted with their son I know where I stand!

What would you have done? Contrived to trip over, spilling coffee on their table to intervene, or not?