Media Eval Paper Irina Roshdy

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Dec 6, 2023

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1 Media Evaluation Paper I am Sam. Irina Roshdy Educational Leadership Department, Lamar University SPED 5301 X31_13 Survey of Exceptional Learners Dr. J. Darrell Mohr November 18, 2023

2 Media Evaluation Paper: I am Sam. The movie I am Sam is about a single father with an intellectual disability and autism tendencies. He lives in a care facility in Los Angeles and one day meets a homeless woman. He fathers a baby with her, and she leaves him the day the baby is born, leaving him alone with his daughter, Lucy. Sam is taking care of his daughter and when she turns 7, CPS takes her aways questioning his ability to be a good father for her. The movie is about his struggles as a disabled father as well as a societal stereotype surrounding his disability. I chose this movie because the director of the movie was inspired to make the movie after she worked with students with disabilities. Characteristics of Exceptionality in the Movie Physical characteristics of the character with the exceptionality in the movie: Sam Dawson is a man in his thirties. He is a white male and about 5 feet 10 inches. He has dark hair. He lives in Los Angeles and works as an assistant barista in a local Starbucks. He looks to be well dressed and clean. He takes care of himself. He is sweet and innocent as well as a hard worker. He has friends that live in the same care facility as he does. Cognitive characteristics: of the character with the exceptionality in the movie: In the movie, Sam has an IQ of a seven-year-old as well as lots of autistic tendencies. However, in the movie it only states that he has the mind of a 7 years old. I also noticed that he has obsessive compulsive disorder. In the beginning of the movie, he is at work at Starbucks, and he tries to fix the sugar packets by the color and keeps doing it until all the packets are organized. He has a great long- term memory as he remembers all Beatles songs and can quote a lot of them. He is very egocentric when it comes to changing his routines. He shows lots of repetitive behaviors. Social and emotional characteristics of the character with the exceptionality in the movie:

3 While Sam has lots of developmental exceptionalities that lead to daily challenges, he also has lots of strength to help him with his challenges. In his daily functioning he secured a job, he is maintaining an independent living, he has established a close network of friends. He is making sense of the world using associations with existing schemata, for example when he asks his boss for promotion and boss replies with “I will think about it”, he connects it with prior similar experience at the other job and says ‘I know what that means” meaning that he will not get a promotion. He reflects on his own limitations and is aware of his disability. He shows compassion for others throughout the movie. He does try to take other people’s perspective although it’s very difficult for him. He has more skill deficit than performance deficit as he learns a skill quickly and practices it. His social interaction skills are low, but he can communicate with others. Characteristics of Exceptionality in the Literature Physical characteristics of the character with the exceptionality in the literature: Students with autism spectrum disorder typically have normal growth and development. (Friend, 2018, p. 289) However according to Miles and Hilman (2005) autism has some frequent facial features. Some of the frequent facial features of autism are a broader upper face, shorter middle face, wider eyes, bigger mouth, and the philtrum. (Miles and Hilman, 2005). The use of facial features as a physical marker to detect autism is one of the most exciting topics in autism research. This method necessitates exact measurements of the distance between pairs of facial landmarks and protrusions in order to quantify the child’s facial asymmetry. The predicted dysmorphology scores definitely demonstrate ASD. Research used the 3dMD face system, which includes a 3D camera that captures hundreds of facial images in the x, y, z dimensions. The pictures are then combined into a 3D surface mesh, which allows for Euclidean facial shape measurements down to the millimeter level. According to Miles and Hillman, there were significant differences in facial morphology between children with ASD and typically developing (TD). The findings also reveal that people with ASD can be divided into subgroups based on their facial features. Membership in each of these distinct groups was also highly associated to clinical and behavioral characteristics.

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4 Boys are identified almost 5 times more than girls, with one in 42 boys compared to one in 189 girls (CDC, 2014). Cognitive characteristics: of the character with the exceptionality in the literature Children and youth with ASD qualify for special education services if they meet the IDEA 2004 definition as follows: A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities, stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences ( https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/a/300.8/c/1 ) Children and youth with ASD often have irregular patterns of cognitive and educational strengths and deficits, with the majority of individuals with ASD having some level of intellectual disability, although some have average to above-average ability (Gillberg, Helles, Billstedt, & Gillberg, 2016 ). Further, most individuals with autism have a comorbid psychiatric disorder, often depression or ADHD, and these individuals generally have poorer outcomes than those who do not have comorbid diagnoses. Although children and youth with autism share some characteristics with students with other disabilities, their unique features set them apart and sometimes create significant challenges for those who serve them. These distinguishing characteristics include overreliance on rote memory, problems with theory of mind, and problem-solving challenges. (Friend 2008) Social and emotional characteristics of the character with the exceptionality in the literature:

5 The social and emotional challenges that students with autism spectrum disorder encounter are directly related to their other special needs. In particular, language disorders, unconventional language use, and immaturity often characterize these students (Friend 2008) Students may have problems with proxemics—that is, knowing the socially acceptable distance to maintain between people during conversation. These students may stand closer to or farther away from another person than is customary. They also may stare intensely at another person while interacting, making that person very uncomfortable. In contrast, some students may fail to make any eye contact at all, looking to the side or up or down during conversation. This makes it difficult for the other person to judge whether the student is engaged in the topic being discussed. In addition, students may fail to understand or respond to others’ gestures and facial expressions during communication. As a result, they may not notice that the other person is bored or that the person wants to ask a question. (Friend 2008) Analysis of Characteristics How is the main character in the movie similar to the description of the exceptionality in professional sources? The main character Sam Dawson has Autism, mental retardation, and OCD, which is similar to students with ASD having comorbid disorders. In the movie Sam is trying to make sense of areas that are normal for us but hard for him, like communication, or why he can’t take his daughter back from the court. He usually does not look at people or look very awkward in many social interactions as he cannot read facial expressions very well. For example, when he comes to visit his layer Rita, he does not look at her, he looks at the decorations at her office, or when he comes to a new restaurant with his daughter, he doesn’t make eye contact with a waitress. Friend (2018) explains that students with ASD typically stand closer or farther away than most people and they usually fail to make eye contact looking to the side during a conversation. Another area in that Dr. Murphy portrays the characteristics of a student with ASD is the theory of mind. One of the core cognitive deficits. When Lucy, his daughter, is taken away from him, he has a hard time understanding why she can’t go home with him. Another example is when he decided to spend time with Lucy despite his allowed 2 hours, he took her for a whole day and brought her late at night> He did not understand why everyone was so upset about it including his Layer because “Its his daughter”. Friend explains that difficulties with theory of mind can be seen when individuals with autism spectrum disorder difficulty have explaining their own behaviors, recognizing that others may not know answers to

6 their questions, predicting others’ emotions or behaviors, comprehending others’ perspectives, understanding how behavior affects others’ thoughts and feelings, participating in conversations, and distinguishing fact from fiction (Friend 2018). How is the main character in the movie different from the description of the exceptionality in professional sources? One of the differences shown in the movie is that Sam has verbal skills and does not show he has echolalia. Students with ASD often engage in echolalia, which is repeating words and phrases that have been uttered by someone else (Friend, 2018, p. 298) Another thing that I did not notice is that Sam does not show any self-stimulatory behaviors. I did not see him rocking, hitting himself or doing any repetitive behaviors. According to Friend (2018) Self- stimulatory behaviors may involve rocking, hand flapping, and any other repetitive, stereotyped behavior patterns that appear to have no apparent function (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015a ; Rodgers, Riby, Janes, Connolly, & McConachie, 2012 ), although they sometimes are associated with stress. Determination of the accuracy of the media’s representation of the exceptionality: I think that depiction of Sam as an autistic man with a 7-year-old mind was pretty accurate. The main character has additional exceptionality as many kids with ASD. He has many deficits that are similar to the deficits of a person with ASD. Most of his deficits are in social emotional aspects. He has a hard time understanding other people’s feelings as well as understanding a lot of unfamiliar social behaviors. He loves his routines and follows them. Most of his characteristics are the same as a characteristic of a child with autism.

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7 Implications for Future Practice I loved this assignment. I have never watched this movie or any movies about people with exceptionalities and I am determined to watch many. I will also use some of the clips from the movies for my social skills groups as it perfectly shows specific tendencies and characteristics of a disability. I also learned a lot about social interactions of people with ASD and how hard it is for them to understand somebody else’s feelings.

8 References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2014, March 24). Autism Spectrum Disorder: Data and statistics. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html Friend, M. P. (2018). Special Education: Contemporary Perspectives for School Professionals (5th ed., p. 295-99). Pearson Education, Inc. IDEA Individuals with disability act. Retrieved from https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/a/300.8/c/1 Miles J.H., Takahashi T.N., Bagby S., Sahota P.K., Vaslow D.F., Wang C.H., Hillman R.E., Farmer J.E. Essential versus complex autism: Definition of fundamental prognostic subtypes. Am. J. Med. Genet. A. (2005 ; 135 :171–180)

Media Eval Paper Irina Roshdy

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