Introduction
The film titled ‘I am Sam’ directed by Jessie Nelson is a story of mentally retarded and autistic man called Sam Dawson who fathers a child, Lucy, with a homeless woman. Lucy’s mother ran away soon after her birth leaving her in the custody of her developmentally retarded father. Sam is considered to have a mental ability of a seven year old, but, has a determination of a mature adult. He works at a coffee shop and is obsessed with beetle. Despite his developmental challenges, Sam manages to raise her daughter with the help of friends that include Doug Hutchison, Brad and Joe who are also developmentally challenged. These friends take care of Lucy in their own unique and funny way. Sam loves her daughter and occasionally goes with her to karaoke and video nights. Lucy grows and surpasses her dad in mental reasoning. Consequently, she is teased by other students in school because of her father has mental challenge. Lucy invites her friends from school for her seventh birthday celebrations. At the celebrations, several of Lucy’s friends mock her together with her dad, Sam. Sam notices that Lucy is hurt by her friends and decides to scold at the offending child. The parent of the offending child targets Sam as an unfit parent. Lucy is taken away from Sam by a social worker during the birthday celebration. The father is allowed to visit her twice a week. With the advice of friends, Sam approaches Rita Harrison to be his attorney for child custody case. Rita is a high priced lawyer who has a reputation of being heartless and self-seeker. She is obsessive, angry and high powered. Rita’s marriage has failed, and the husband has left her to take care of their son. She decides to take up Sam’s case pro bono to demonstrate to people that she is not heartless. During the trial, Rita comes to know Sam as a loving, devoted and good person who has helped her to overcome family problems. She appreciates by telling Sam that he has done more good to her than she has done for him. Although Sam’s developmental history is not captured in the film, there is evidence from the film that he is mentally challenged. Sam in summoned by school administrators over Lucy’s poor performance. He is shown Lucy’s class drawing that indicated her fear of learning. School officials inform Sam that Lucy identifies with him. They tell him that he has a mental capacity of 7 year old and her daughter is unwilling to grow beyond his mental ability. At the courtroom, the prosecutor tells the judges that Sam records showed that he had autistic tendencies. Sam has strong social skills. He has managed to take care of his daughter Lucy for seven years. He also worked at Starbucks as a helper until his child custody case. His responsibilities included cleaning floors and tables and restocking utensils on the table. Sam manifests empathy and show great and insightful understandings of people’s emotions. He helps his attorney, Rita Harrison to repair her relationship with her son. When, Sam’s case emerges his manager at Starbucks decides to promote him to the coffee maker in show of support. However, his promotions attract attention because he lacks motor skills and coordination to navigate through the crowded restaurant. Moreover, he lacks the mental ability to process multiple customers’ orders. Actions and sentiments from various scenes show that Sam is Autistic. Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a group of developmental disabilities that can result into significant social, behavioral, physical and communication impairments. ASD diagnosis is conducted according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS-IV) guidelines. DMS-IV list five disorders under ASD. They include Asperger's disorder, autistic disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) and Rett's disorder. There is a wide variation on the way ASD exhibits itself on people. However, individual with ASD has social, language and behavioral challenges. Challenges in social skills are exhibited by inappropriate body language and expression, absence of interest in other people, difficulty understanding people’s feelings and difficulty in initiating interaction and friendship. The speech challenges include difficulty in communicating desires, talking in unusual tone of voice and repeating words without clear communication intent. On the other hand, symptoms under restricted behavior include abnormal posture, repetitive body movement and preoccupation with items or topics of interest. Sam can be considered as having high functioning autism (HFA) because of a number of reasons. HFA signs and symptoms are less severe that other disorders in the spectrum. Sam continues to perform his responsibilities at Starbucks. He loves to engage customers in lively conversations. At home he enjoys playing with Lucy and taking her out. He also demonstrated exceptional reciprocity in his relationship with his lawyer. During lunch with Rita, Sam advices the attorney separate with her abusive husband out of great empathy. This level of interpersonal skills can only be shown by a person with HFA. Sam also meets the DSM criterion for diagnostic mental retardation. His has an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) range of between 50 and 70. It is difficult to pinpoint the factors that made Sam to be autistic. The film does not reveal Sam’s early life. However, it is believed that complex hereditary and environmental factors are responsible for the disorder. Scientists believe that there are some genes linked to ASD that are inherited from the parents. This is because ASD has a reputation of affecting members of the same family. Again, ASD is common in identical twins. Nine out of ten identical twins have ASD if either one of the twin happens to have the disorder (Diane, 2009). Besides, the risk of developing ASD is 35 times for individuals whose siblings have ASD. However, it is important to note that so far no single gene has been associated with autism. Nonetheless, there are genetic risks associated with Autism. Again, this does not mean that a child from autistic family shall develop autism. There are high chances that Sam’s condition is hereditary. Perhaps his parents were autistic. The film does not feature any close family member having autism. Researches continue to reveal that apart from genetic factors, environmental factors play an important role in the development and occurrence of autism. Environment means agents that are external to the body but affect health. They include things that the body come into contact with and include air, water, drugs and chemicals. Some of the agents in the environment that are believed to increase the risk of ASD include toxins, for example, heavy metals such as mercury. Others are pregnancy and birth complications, parental age, family medical conditions and demographic factors. The most relevant theory that can be used to explain Sam’s condition is the weak central theory. The theory was put forward by psychologist Uta Frith in early 1980s. Uta used the term central coherence to refer to refer to individual’s ability to get overall meaning from a myriad of details. A person with strong central coherence according to Uta sees a forest from looking at the expanse of trees. On the contrary, an individual with low central coherence would an expanse of individual trees. This theory accounts for strengths exhibited by people with autism. Some of the autistic people excel in areas such as music, geometry and arts. The theory holds that the autistic people do well in these areas because they tend to focus on details. Consequently, they are able to derive tiny components from complex objects. Again, autistic people disadvantaged when they are required to pick global attributes for a complex object. The weak central coherence theory can be used to explain why Sam is very successful in building interpersonal relationship. He manages to maintain friendship with Rita who had been described as heartless. He loves his daughter Lucy and interacts with his friends well. It can be said that Sam is focused on human relationship. Thus, he listens to people, find out their problems and provide solutions. In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that the film ‘I saw Sam’ goes beyond entertainment into sensitization of people about disability. One of its key themes is mental disability. The film intends to show people that people with mental disability can have great interpersonal and parenting skills despite their condition. Sam, a mentally retarded person overcomes life challenges to become a hero in the film.
References
Diane, V (2009). A love that matters: On family journey through autism from heartache to healing. Bloomington: Authors House.
