TV show shows the reality of living with autism

Comprised of two grandparents, four children, and the children’s families, the show focused on the struggles of a normal American family. A family member, Max, was the first television character to show the realities of living with a child on the autism spectrum.

The character, played by Max Burkholder, was only 11 years old when the show began filming. Before Max began filming the show, he studied autism so he could accurately portray the role. Max said that he was determined to understand autism before filming the show because he wanted his portrayal to be accurate. Like Max, the scenes he shot featured personality tics and deeply emotional scenes designed to hit home with families of children with autism. His role helped raise awareness about the spectrum.

During Season 5, Max had one particular scene where he goes on an unsupervised field trip with other students in his class. His classmates teased and bullied Max until he collapsed, forcing his parents to drive him out of the activity. On the drive home, Max said to his parents, “Why do all the other kids hate me? Is it because I’m weird?” His on-screen parents, played by Monica Potter and Peter Krause, were speechless. This particular scene shocked many parents. Direct honesty and the harsh reality of being misunderstood by others is something families with autism face on a regular basis.

Writer and producer, Jason Katims, based the television show on a movie of the same name. He drew inspiration for the character of Max from his own son who lives on the specter. Katims said he wanted to include some of his own challenges as a parent, including the difficulties of raising a child on the autism spectrum. When he started, Katims said he wasn’t sure how it would work because there was no other show or movie that tackled the disorder head-on. “I was worried. Would everyone turn it down? Would we be able to do a good job of telling the story…what is the experience really like for a family dealing with this?”

Throughout the show, the character of Max is seen handling a variety of everyday situations and some not-so-everyday situations. In the fourth season of the show, Max’s mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. When her parents tell him that she is sick, he replies, “Okay. Can I go watch TV?” In the same episode, Max tells his mother that if he receives chemotherapy, the treatment will kill healthy cells along with diseased cells. This episode accurately highlighted the typical response Asperger’s sufferers often have to emotional situations. In many cases they respond with facts, things they know how to handle.

Burkholder said, “The way Max thinks about things is rationally and logically, rather than emotionally. In his mind, rather than, ‘My God, my mother could die. I’m very sad. What I am going to do?’ It was more like, ‘Hmm, it will be very inconvenient not to have a mother. That will suck if she’s gone. No one will be able to take me to school, cook me food, things like that.“

Part of what made the show special was how the audience learned to see someone living with autism as a human being.

“At first, I thought playing Max was about the fact that he had Asperger’s. But over time, it’s been more like his Asperger’s is more secondary to who he is,” Burkholder said.