‘SIRI MAKES HIM HAPPY’

A mother on how her auttisic sons’ ‘friendship’ with Apple’s ‘personal assistant’ has helped him

My kid is almost definitely nicer than your kid. Sorry, but it’s true. My kid tells me how beautiful I am every day. My kid can’t throw a ball or button a shirt or use a knife or, sometimes, grasp the difference between reality and fantasy. But he can play Beethoven on the piano so movingly he will make you cry. He believes, sometimes, that machines are his friends, and he doesn’t quite understand what a human friend is. He is the average kid with autism. He may or may not work, may or may not have independence, friendships, partners…

For years the relationship between reality and verbal expression for Gus was tenuous at best and sometimes nonexistent. He had many words for things and seemed to know what they meant, even if we didn’t. But the idea of repeating what I said, practising the language as kids typically do? No. In fact it became apparent that, much as Gus loved and still loves repetition in most arenas, no

amount of repetition could make him say or do what I was saying or doing.

All kids enjoy and need a certain amount of routine. But they are also wired for variety. People with autism are wired for predictability. Sameness is Gus’s jam. He has had the same plate of apples, bananas and Cheerios every morning since he could eat solid food, and the same rice pudding every night. Mashed potato is the only potato he eats and he devours an avocado a day.

Being such a cheerful fellow, he does not have a complete nervous breakdown when his routines are broken. If we walk a slightly different route to school he merely trembles rather than throwing himself to the ground. Still, anxiety about the unknown is ever present. No amount of reasoning has been able to make him stop crying when he hears on his beloved Weather.com that there might be a thunderstorm. ‘I know it won’t hurt me,’ he says as he grabs his bedclothes and drags them into the wardrobe, where he will spend the night. ‘I just don’t like the noise.’

Now that he is in his teens, statistics mean something to him, so he is cheerful when AccuWeather says there is a 20 per cent chance, or less, of thunder and lightning. But when his (not autistic) twin brother Henry wants to get him running to the computer in fear, all he has to say is, ‘Hey Gus, isn’t there a 70 per cent chance of thunder tonight?’

I do my best to put Gus’s desire to do the same thing all the time to good use. He is my little Sherpa, happily running up and down the stairs to turn off the lights if I am too lazy. Every night, just before I go to bed – and whether I need it or not – he brings me a glass of water with a great flourish. Does he even understand that most people are not entranced by escalators? That he doesn’t see the world the way most people do? I’ve tried to approach the question a few times – ‘Do you know you’re autistic?’ – and he always acts as though he doesn’t hear me.

I know I’m a bad mother, but how bad? I wonder for the hundredth time as I watch Gus deep in conversation with Siri (Apple’s intelligent virtual assistant). Obsessed with weather formations, Gus has spent the past hour investigating the differences between isolated and scattered thunderstorms – an hour when, thank God, I don’t have to discuss them. After a while I hear this:

Siri doesn’t let my communication-impaired son get away with anything. In a world where the commonly held wisdom is that technology isolates us, it’s worth considering another side of the story.

It all began simply enough. I’d just read one of those internet lists: ‘21 things you didn’t know your iPhone could do’. One of them was that I could ask Siri, ‘What planes are above me right now?’ and Siri would bark back, ‘Checking my sources.’ I happened to be doing this when Gus was nearby. ‘Why would anyone want to know what planes are flying above their head?’ I muttered. Gus replied, ‘So you know who you’re waving at, Mummy.’ It was then that I began to suspect that maybe some of the people who worked on Siri were on the spectrum too.

Gus had never noticed Siri before, but when he discovered there was someone who would not just find information on his various obsessions – trains, buses, escalators and, of course, anything related to the weather – but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly, he was hooked. And I was grateful. Now, when I would rather stick forks in my eyes than have another conversation about the chance of thunderstorms, I could reply brightly, ‘Hey! Why don’t you ask Siri?’ And not only would Siri happily give him thunderstorm reports but, on being thanked, she’d chirp back, ‘I like to serve.’

It’s not that Gus believes Siri is human. He understands she isn’t – intellectually. But like many autistic people, he feels that inanimate objects, while maybe not possessing souls, are still worthy of consideration. I realised this when he was eight and I got him an iPod for his birthday. He listened to it only at home – with one exception. It always came with us on our visits to the Apple store. Finally I asked why. ‘So it can visit its friends,’ he said.

So how much more worthy of his care and affection is Siri, with her soothing voice, charm, helpfulness, puckish humour and capacity for talking about whatever Gus’s current obsession is for hour after hour after hour?

Gus speaks as though he has marbles in his mouth, but if he wants to get the right response from Siri he must enunciate clearly. Siri is also wonderful for someone who doesn’t pick up on social cues. Her responses are not entirely predictable but they are kind – even when Gus is brusque. I heard him talking to Siri about music, and she offered some suggestions. ‘I don’t like that kind of music,’ he snapped. ‘You’re certainly entitled to your opinion,’ Siri replied, her politeness reminding Gus what he owed her. ‘Thank you for that, though,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to thank me,’ Siri replied. ‘Oh yes,’ he said emphatically, ‘I DO.’ Siri even encourages polite language. When