The Alligator Clip and Echolalia: Local Coherence in Kamran Nazeer’s Send in the Idiots

Kamran Nazeer is a government policy advisor in Whitehall, in the UK. He is autistic and he is the author of Send In the Idiots: Stories from the other side of autism, which was published earlier this year. Nazeer tells the stories of four of his former classmates at a small school for autistic children in New York City in the 1980s, of “how they have emerged into adulthood” (p. 6); he also writes about his teacher, Ms. Russell, who still teaches autistic children. Some, like Nazeer himself, attended mainstream school and went onto college; Craig is a speechwriter for the Democratic Party, André a computer scientist. And yet, as Nazeer shows with care and kindess, while their “autism eased” (p. 229), being autistic still profoundly affects their interactions with others and the path of their lives.

Nazeer does not use terms like “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” in writing about his former classmates, though not all have been able to “achieve” the “success” of Craig and André, and of Nazeer himself. What Send In the Idiots: Stories from the other side of autism shows is how, however many academic skills one has acquired, however many social skills one has been trained in, the difference of autism remains. Randall is a bike messenger in Chicago and the only one of the former classmates to be involved in a romantic relationship (which ends when Randall discovers that his partner, Mike, has been cheating on him—and that Mike thought that Randall would be unaware of this). Elizabeth struggled to learn to take the bus to the library by herself, lived with her parents, and gave piano lessons. She committed suicide at the age of 26 in 2002 by swallowing “the contents of most of her bottles and jars, even the nutritional supplements” (p. 173) and climbing into the swimming pool.

Wound into his narratives of his former classmates are Nazeer’s own memories of growing up autistic and of how he has managed to learn to engage in conversation and to live in the often messy world of human relations. And he is occasionally assisted in this through a small device, a crocodile or alligator clip:

I rarely go out without a crocodile clip in my pocket, though recently my cell phone has begun to substitute for it. I play with the clip for something to focus on while I try to do something harder, like explain to a friend why I didn’t return her call. (pp. 37-38)

Nazeer writes of how the alligator clip (as he refers to it on p. 122) helps him to have “local coherence.” He introduces this term by way of explaining the title of the book: “Send in the idiots” was a phrase that one of the students, Craig (the speechwriter), said over and over when Ms. Russell was reading the students from a newspaper.

Echolalia, or the constant, disconnected use of a particular word or phrase, is one example of rhythmic or repetitive behavior, a common trait among autistic people and often described as a desire for local coherence. This is the preference that autistic people frequently demonstrate for a limited, though immediate, form of order as protection again complexity or confusion. (pp. 3-4)

Nazeer cites toe-walking, running to and fro (Charlie does this), teeth grinding, rocking, lining up toys, blinking, banging or rolling one’s head (Charlie does this), “multiplying three-digit prime numbers” and “moving fingers as if double-jointed or made of dough” as some examples of “coherentizing behaviors.”

André the computer scientist uses puppets; Elizabeth played the piano; Nazeer has his alligator clip. At a Republican fundraising event at which he and Craig feel more than uncomfortable (not because they are autistic, but because their views are solidly with the Democrats), Nazeer notes that:

I opened the clip and I closed it. I opened it and held it open. I put a finger between its jaws and let go its sides. I released my finger and placed the clip briefly in the palm of my hand…… I could focus on what I was doing with the clip, and other matters could become just a backdrop. I didn’t have to worry about what I was achieving at the party. I could take a break and worry about the clip instead, which was a simpler thing to worry about, a simpler thing to understand and manipulate. (p. 122)

Nazeer’s description of his handling of the alligator clip is exacting and occurs not only at a moment of social confusion (he and Craig recognize few people at the party). The “difficult part” that Nazeer singles out is not being at a political fundraising party, but at “making conversation with Republicans” (p. 121)—at speaking with individuals whose political and ideological world-views are not in keeping with their own, whose political perspective is not the same as their own. As he and Craig leave the party, Nazeer notes that only had to take the alligator clip out of his pocket “on one occasion” as Craig shouts out “Send in the idiots!” (p. 125), and is echoed by Nazeer.

What interests me about Nazeer and the alligator clip (and Craig’s “send in the idiots”) is his noting that he only had to use it once at the party—that he was able to regulate his use of it. I think of my son Charlie who was greatly helped in sitting through a 90-minutes movie ysterday by thumping and rocking a tortoise-shell-shaped plastic booster seat in his lap. Nazeer’s accounts of his former classmates note how puppets for André, piano playing for Elizabeth, are and were means of establishing “local coherence” for them; neither André nor Elizabeth are shown to have been able to manage to regulate the puppets or the piano playing as Nazeer has, and he writes simply of their struggles.

I will try to write more about the stories of André, Randall, Craig, Elizabeth, and Kamran Nazeer himself in upcoming posts. One question I am wondering about:

Is writing a means for Nazeer himself to acquire local coherence?