Adam (House)

Diagnosis: Autism

Portrayed By Braeden Lamasters
Season 3: "Lines in the Sand"

Episode focuses on a young nonverbal autistic boy who starts screaming in reaction to pain. His parents take him to the hospital, but because he is unable to communicate doctors are stumped at the cause of the pain. He is transferred to House's team. 

The episode doesn’t divulge much information about the boy's behavior because it focuses on the medical condition, but we do learn that he needs to follow a strict routine and that his father has recently been diagnosed with depression. They also say: “nobody chooses this”. I was horrified by the writers' decision to make Adam's father depressed. While having a child diagnosed with Autism is horribly stressful for parents and some of these parents may have depression, it seemed like a very extreme portrayal to choose. What does this say to the public?  That having a child with Autism is so devastating that the parent could develop a serious mental health disorder? Great. Just imagine a parent seeing this soon after their child is diagnosed with an ASD. Horrifying. Scarring. 

At the end of the episode, one of the main doctors suggests that House, the main character, might have Asperger’s Syndrome, where he defines it as “a mild and rare for of autism. It is typically characterized by a difficulty in forming friendships, playing with peers, trouble accepting conventional social rules and the dislike of any change in setting, or routine”. The GOOD: Besides "Parenthood", this is the only show that concretly mentions the spectrum aspect of ASD, showing both the extreme case of the nonverbal young boy, and the high functioning doctor. Even though he is not officially not diagnosed, simply suggesting he could have Asperger's shows the audience that there are different symptoms and severities of the disorder. The BAD: Center for Disease Control and Prevention's 2006 (the show aired in 2006) report on Autism notes that 1 of 110 children are diagnosed with ASD. While those with Asperger's only accounts for a portion of that number, I would would not say it was "rare". I think it diminishes people's ideas regarding the importance of learning about this minority group. 

*There are no YouTube videos of this boy, but I suggest you look for the entire episode elsewhere (Amazon, iTunes, etc). Here is a link to fan site that has this episode's promo video:

http://www.thehousefan.com/view/697/house-md-3x04-lines-in-the-sand-promo/