The Perfect Wife(71)

Really, you’re so right for this family, it’s absurd.

When you get to the school, Danny’s greeted by a support worker and led inside. Sian goes with them.

“Let me talk to the principal’s office,” Tim says to you. “There should be someone who can show us around.”

A few minutes later he comes back with the principal himself. You’re not surprised at that, either. Not many people pass up the chance to schmooze a tech millionaire.

“Rob Hadfield,” the principal says, introducing himself with an ingratiating smile. If he thinks it odd to be shaking a mechanical hand, he hides it well. Probably for the same reason he’s showing you around, you think cynically.

The three of you stroll through a well-lit vestibule.

“Meadowbank is one of only two facilities for autistic learners in the whole of the U.S. where the teaching methods are still based on B. F. Skinner’s original studies,” Hadfield begins, launching into what’s clearly a well-rehearsed patter. “That’s one reason our results are so good. Where most practitioners have watered down their practices to fit in with current trends, our approach is evidence-based.” He leads the way into what looks like an amusement arcade. “This is our Yellow Brick Road area. Students who earn points for good behavior can spend them here. That’s the positive-reinforcement side of what we do.”

There are Xboxes, a brightly colored candy store, even a replica McDonald’s. A single student is playing on an Xbox, his face rigid and expressionless. “Jonathan,” the principal calls. “Say good morning to our visitors.”

The student pauses the game. “Good morning,” he echoes dully. His eyes don’t meet yours, but he waits until you say “Good morning” in return before turning back to his game.

“B. F. Skinner,” you say. “Wasn’t he the rat man?”

“Some of Skinner’s work originated with rat behaviors, yes. He moved on to examining the fundamental drivers of all animal learning. Including human learning.”

You’re walking into an area of glass-walled classrooms now. The rooms are small, no more than half a dozen students in each. All the students are wearing black backpacks—not slung casually over a shoulder, as a normal student might, but fastened across their backs. Danny also has such a backpack, you realize. It accompanies him in the car each day, though you’ve never seen him wear it.

“Is that where they keep their things? Those backpacks?”

Hadfield nods. “And the power supplies for their clickers.”

“Clickers?”

“It’s what the students call their GEDs—their graduated electronic decelerators.”

It’s not a term you’re familiar with. You wait, in the hope it might come to you, but before anything does the principal adds, “The GED delivers a small contingent aversive whenever the student exhibits negative behaviors.”

You have to puzzle out the jargon. “Contingent aversive—you mean punishment? You’re giving the students electric shocks when they misbehave?”

“Misbehave isn’t really a word you can use of these learners,” Hadfield says with a smile. “Or punishment, for that matter. We don’t assume they know the difference between right and wrong. We simply ask, What are the behaviors we want them to display less of? And then we provide a negative consequence every time it happens.”

Your eye is drawn through one of the classroom windows. A teenager has begun flapping his hands in front of his face, his elbows pumping up and down. A member of staff sitting at the back reaches out to a bank of controllers and taps one. Instantly the student’s body jumps, as if stung.

“We make no apology for using these techniques,” Hadfield adds. “If you look at the studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of behavioral approaches, they all used similar methods.” He nods through the window. “When Simeon came to us a year ago, he was biting his hands until they bled. His parents had taped boxing gloves to his hands to try to stop him, and he was deranged with stress from trying to rip the tape off with his teeth. Using the GED, we’ve reduced his hand biting to around three episodes a week.”

“And Danny?” you say, appalled. “Does he get shocked too?”

“He has been. I’m glad to say that, in his case, the aversives had a very beneficial effect.”

“You mean, he no longer hurts himself as much, because he knows that if he does, you’ll hurt him even more.”

Hadfield shrugs. “That’s the basic idea, yes.”

You look at Tim. “And Abbie agreed with all this?”

Throughout the principal’s spiel Tim hasn’t said a word. But you’ve sensed the intensity with which he’s been watching you.

“It took her a while,” he says. “But eventually, yes. Because it works. We’d tried everything else. Vitamin shots, craniosacral head massages, sleeping in an oxygen tent, crazy diets…Abbie even took him to some guy who claimed to be able to identify the cause of Danny’s autism by examining the irises of his eyes. None of those therapies made a shred of difference. This did.”

You’re silent.

“We don’t even have to shock him now. Or very rarely. A clicker comes home with him in his backpack, and if he ever becomes uncontrollable, it’s enough just to show it to him and he stops.”