Interview with Nuala Gardner | Sound Authors Radio

November 9, 2008

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on the show is Nuala Gardner. She wrote a book called A Friend Like Henry. It’s a book about a mother’s story of how her little boy dealt with his autism with the help of the family dog, a golden retriever. Welcome to the show Nuala Gardner.

Nuala Gardner: Good afternoon.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about this golden retriever to start off. What about this dog was special and was able to work with your child.

Nuala Gardner: Well we weren’t sure because my son was severely autistic. So we needed to find a dog that would tolerate an extreme environment. That is an environment where a dog or a puppy would tolerate screaming, seeing childish behavior almost on a regular basis at home. We researched it thoroughly and the golden retriever sentiment and also social ability. It had to be a sociable dog because we wanted to have a dog who could show our son how to interact. So the golden retriever we felt had the best attributes to do that.

Dr. Kent: I’m also the owner of a golden retriever and they are just the most wonderful dogs in the world.

Nuala Gardner: Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Kent: Now tell me about your son. He was born with autism and tell me a little bit about the disease because so many of us have heard the word autism, even the candidates McCain and Obama here in the US talked about autism the other day in the debates. But so few people know what it is, what it’s caused by and all of that.

Nuala Gardner: It’s very complex but quite simply what’s quite frightening about this disability whether you are dealing with an MMR or whatever the cause, 15 years ago in the United Kingdom it was specifically one in 2,000 were afflicted. Twenty years later and I think in America statistics are one in 150 children are now affected and in the UK it’s one in 110. So that in itself is very worrying.

I’m not surprised that politicians have addressed occasions of it. But with autism people have to think of it like a triad of impairments. There are three major areas. The very first area is either a child has no ability at all to communicate or some are labeled with some ability but its very naïve, very immature and all suffer some type of non-verbal communication or language or emotion is very difficult. Given that area of deficit of communication it then affects the ability to make relationships and that also causes the third part of the triad, which is the inability to have imagination and thought.

So really any level, whether it’s a mild level or severe level it really is complex and really stops people affected functioning at any level with great difficulty and with society not understanding this I feel we have such a long way to go and that is why I felt like I needed to tell our story. It really has taken the mystery out of this disability that whoever reads this, whether it be a professor or a shop assistant, we will understand the complexity of a person.

Dr. Kent: What does it help? You talk about emotional interactions and such; what does it help to have this dog and connect your son with this animal?

Nuala Gardner: Well just think about this triad of impairments my son had in its severest form. So this golden retriever with its sociability and its temperament, it really had the most incredible temperament, the dog is just the most wonderful thing and absolutely tolerated the extreme environment that I mentioned.

But because he was a loving dog, he had the ability to teach our son, it was intense on a daily basis but through the connection with the dog he learned to eventually make friends. The dog was his first real success in a friendship and he learned to make human friends but ultimately he learned to be independent and be able to function and look after himself. So I couldn’t ask any more of our dog; it can’t get any better than that.

Dr. Kent: Now talk about this book. How did you come to write this book? It was just published in September by Source Books, how did you come about writing it and getting it out there?

Nuala Gardner: What actually happened was many years ago the story goes that I actually entered a small competition and it basically was ###, but what actually happened was that small story I wrote explaining how wonderful our dog was and how wonderful the breakthroughs were. There were dozens of entries, it was a national competition, and right after there was a drama meet called after ### but it was a very successful drama in the UK that was aired on BBC America and has done very well on BBB.

It did actually get an award in China but from that successful drama and really the public had such a dramatic, such a truthful, that one thing I’m really pleased about is that with the autistic society and you would be surprised what happens there. I’m very delighted because the main stream public are embracing my story. I think it does because it’s a story and it’s about American people can at last understand this complex disability.

Dr. Kent: So talk about the book itself. Of course it’s a story and it connects to family people, it connects to people like me who love golden retrievers. Is your book really able to describe autism and the problem of autism?

Nuala Gardner: Absolutely. It’s a very unique story in that it gives out very detailed things so people can understand severe autism from the day that he was a baby in my arms when he was born right through and it detailed the times he would laugh or cry but the one thing it did was give hope to thousands of parents and helped many of the main stream readers because they see how this wonderful dog transforms this boys life and how it broke down the barriers of his autism.

The public will understand how much this dog meant to us and I think that’s obviously the issues. For three whole years how the dog spoke to Dale and how the dog actually communicated and Dale communicated via the dog and its very unique but when people put the book down ### but I think they will enjoy all aspects of it and have total empathy for autism and be absolutely delighted that this wonderful, average dog, he was just a golden retriever but he was exceptional. Ultimately it is a journey that will give hope to many from many walks of life.

Dr. Kent: Well, this has been such an honor talking about the book A Friend Like Henry; it’s an international bestseller and was just released by Source Books in September. It’s a story of a mother, a child, and the dog that taught her child how to deal with autism. Certainly you had a role in that as well and I hope that you continue to be able to help people with this more common disease than it should be.

Nuala Gardner: Internationally we are working hard to make a difference. It’s slow but we’re getting there.

Dr. Kent: Well, it’s been an honor speaking with Nuala Gardner. A Friend Like Henry; we’ll check out her book at sourcebooks.com and if you Google it you’ll see plenty of great articles online about it. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Nuala Gardner: Your welcome; thank you, it’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is Richard A Singer. He’s the author of several books and he is planning a world record breaking run for charity. He wants to cross the United States in 46 days so come on back for that; it’ll be an honor chatting with him.

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