Parent's difficulties with their autistic son: A study in Deanna Jent's Falling

Abstract

ABSTRACT: It is quite evident that autism is a problem children suffer from recently in real life. As such for its significant abundance, it has been presented in many literary works especially in drama. Such a case is particularly dealt with by playwrights who suffered from such a phenomenon in their own families as in the present case of Deana Jent. Jent presents autism as an urgent issue that hurts children in her play Falling. This paper sheds light on how children are ostracized by the society and the latter's negligence and lack of awareness which produces outcast children. In addition, this paper raises awareness, through exploring this issue inside theatre, on how such children should be treated. The American Psychiatric Association adopts many approaches to handle this case such as; Applied Theater Research and Autism Network (ARTRAN) which cites the theater to combat this disorder. Using theatre to get the communication in autism has been gaining popularity as it is an active means to overcome a lot of autism's disabilities . Theatre helps autistic teens understand how actions and words can influence in different social situations, because they think in images not in words as this paper will demonstrate in Jent's Falling.