By Steve Seepersaud
A willingness to challenge long-held assumptions has enabled Barry Prizant ’72 to build an impressive career as a clinical scholar, consultant, researcher and program consultant to autistic children and older persons on the autism spectrum and with related neurodevelopmental disabilities, and their families.
It started during his time at Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, a place he credits for nurturing independent thought. And, it has carried across more than 50 years of research, consulting and writing. A crowning achievement was writing Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism (Simon & Schuster, 2015), a best-selling book updated and expanded in 2022, which to date has been translated and published in 26 languages.
The book has inspired a podcast of the same title, and Prizant is proud to have had the opportunity to twice present his work at the United Nations on World Autism Day.
“As I became familiar [as a student] with the research literature in autism, I was struck by how overly simplistic and deficit-oriented it was, pathologizing so much of what we observed in autistic children,” Prizant said. “Rather than focusing on fixing autistic people, as if they were damaged versions of some normal ideal, [Uniquely Human] focuses on the importance of understanding and respecting the autistic experience, and providing the right supports by changing what we do in educational and even employment settings, and in society in general. This paradigm shift is the primary message of Uniquely Human and puts a greater obligation on changes that society must make, rather than a primary focus on changing the autistic individual.”
Prizant has always had a passion for language and helping people. He started working at residential summer camps for children and adults with disabilities the same year he enrolled at Binghamton. He planned on being a German major but changed course after learning he would need a one-year language immersion in Germany.
“I shifted to majoring in linguistics with a focus on psycholinguistics, an exciting emerging field at that time, exploring the relationships between thought and language,” Prizant said. “I was fascinated by the language patterns and communication difficulties of so many of my campers with whom I shared my life for two months each year for five consecutive years. It simply made sense to connect my lived experience with autistic and neurodivergent individuals to my academic interests. Stephen Straight taught a fascinating course on the biological and psychological bases of language that not only ignited my interest as my focus of research, but also my future plans as a speech-language clinician, educational consultant and, over the past two decades, a colleague, collaborator and friend with many autistic and neurodivergent professionals and family members.”
Prizant also volunteered at an Easter Seals Center preschool and connected with a speech-language pathologist who worked with many youngsters who were autistic or had related neurodevelopmental conditions. He was hooked and went on to graduate study at the University at Buffalo in communication disorders and sciences.
He was later recruited by Brown University Medical School to develop the first communication disorders department in a pediatric psychiatric hospital with an appointment in the psychiatry department. This allowed him to expand his work beyond autism to understanding relationships between communication disorders and emotional and behavioral disorders in children.
Prizant and his wife, Elaine Meyer of Harvard Medical School, offer an annual retreat in New England for family members of people with autism. It was initially designed to give round-the-clock caregivers a much-needed breather, but the experience, he says, has evolved into much more.
“It has become a community of support, and parents report it has provided them with the energy, hope, strategies and perspective that has enhanced quality of life for their families, and even has saved marriages,” he said. “The power and benefits of being with others with shared experiences, where nobody has to explain their unique journeys, is life-changing. Parents attend from all over the U.S., and even other countries. Two special additions to the retreat in recent years are a one-day training prior to the retreat for those who wish to replicate the retreat in their geographic regions, and inviting autistic self-advocates to facilitate discussion sessions with parents, many of whom had never met an autistic adult.”
As a Harpur student, Prizant — an avid percussionist — played in a few bands, including the popular Mudsharks. It’s another part of his Binghamton experience that influences his present-day work.
“Music is a universal language and often an area of strength and a medium for developing trusting relationships,” he said. “[I co-host my podcast] with Dave Finch, an autistic audio and music engineer who also is a talented musician. [Our podcast] uses the music of Matt Savage, an internationally renowned jazz composer and pianist whom I have known since he was 9. Even with the youngest children, music can serve many purposes, something I have written about and share in my seminars. To stay involved with the great benefits of music and the arts, I serve on two boards of theatre and expressive arts companies, The Miracle Project of Los Angeles, providing programs for all ages and abilities; and the Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, a professional company based in my current home state of Rhode Island, co-founded and run by autistic theatre professionals.”
“I truly believe my experiences at Harpur provided the opportunities and foundation that prepared me for not only a successful career, but an approach to life, in which my work, relationships and personal growth are interwoven and inseparable. I continue to be inspired by the incredible people I work with and have learned from, with no plans to retire as I approach my 73rd birthday. I hope [my fellow alumni] are as proud of and grateful for the Binghamton legacy we all share.”