I Am Sam: A Diagnostic View Mental Retardation and Autist Sp

In the movie I Am Sam, Sam, the main character and the focus of this writing, is a “mentally challenged” father who enlists the aid of an attorney to help him regain custody of his daughter. Sam and his ‘pro bono’ lawyer must demonstrate that his caretaker capacity has not been hindered by his developmental delays. Sam has a circle of friends whom as a result of their developmental delays, are dismissed as character witnesses, but manage to provide Sam with valuable social, psychological, and economic support.

However, because of her superior intellect, Annie, his female mentor, is selected to act as a character witness in his defense. She also provides him with parental training, emotional support, and life lessons through an analysis of the lives and music of the Beatles. Sam is employed as a helper at Starbucks where he is not promoted to “coffeemaker” until his abilities are challenged in court. To prove that he can earn enough money to pay for a larger apartment, Sam acquires a number of part-time jobs at local fast food stores, establishes his own dog walking busine

Given the scarcity of background information, the etiology and onset of Sam’s mental condition are indecipherable. Though pertinent developmental information is lacking, statements made in two scenes suggest that Sam’s IQ falls into the MR range. In the first scene, school administrators inform Sam of Lucy’s failure to thrive academically. He is shown samples of Lucy’s class drawings that demonstrate her fear of learning. School officials suggest that Lucy overly identifies with her father. They inform Sam that his own records indicate that “you have the intellectual capacity of a 7 year-old” and that Lucy is reluctant to grow beyond her abilities.

Whether Sam has AS and or is a high-functioning autistic maybe a debate over semantics and symptomatically less important. However, his strong social and cognitive abilities clearly place him in the less severe range of autistic spectrum disorders (Siegel, 1996). As stated earlier, Sam exhibits empathy and an intuitive understanding of the emotions of others. One of the hallmarks of autism is an inability to develop reciprocal social interactions (Comer, 1996). At work, Sam enjoys engaging in conversations with customers. He is most content reading and playing with his daughter. It is in his relationship with his attorney that Sam demonstrates his exceptional awareness of social convention and reciprocity. Most noticeably is a scene where Sam and his attorney are having lunch. Sam proceeds to alter the relationship and offers his friendship to his attorney. He encourages her “not to eat your food so fast” and later indicates that she should leave her abusive husband.

Sam has worked for Starbucks for over eight years and he earns eight dollars an hour. His work responsibilities include simple and basic tasks that he performs daily, like restocking the sweet n low bowls on the tables, mopping the floors, and cleaning the tables. Despite his seniority, Sam is routinely denied a promotion to coffee maker. In a desperate move to support Sam in his child custody, Sam’s manager decides to promote Sam to coffee maker. The promotion is a fiasco and Sam is overwhelmed. He lacks the motor skills and coordination to navigate successfully the crowed work area, and he does not have the mental agility to take and fill multiple coffee orders. With out direct supervision, Sam is unable to meet the demands of his new position.

However, IQ testing alone, which only measures a person’s ability to perform in school, is not suffencient in its self to render a diagnosis of mental retardation (Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Bundy, 2001). Mental retardation is also evident where there is a deficit in various adaptive functioning. That is, MR is also indicated by how effectively individuals cope with common life demands and how well they meet the standards of personal independence expected of someone in their particular age group, sociocultural background, and community setting (DSM-IV-TR, 2000). Here Sam’s impairments in his work, social/interpersonal skills, and functional academic skills meet the DSM-IV-TR, B criteria for concurrent deficits in at least two adaptive skill areas.

Another scene that speaks to Sam’s intellectual functioning occurs in the courtroom when the lead prosecutor states “Sam’s records indicate that he is retarded with autistic tendencies.” These scenes seem to suggest that at some point in Sam’s history he was subjected to an IQ test and found to have significant deficits in his intellectual functioning. Because Sam is described as functioning at the mental age of seven years, this places him in the mild to moderate range of MR, which means his IQ score is probably in the range of 35-40 to 50-55, respectively. Individuals with moderate MR are termed “trainable” because they can learn simple and basic tasks (Comer, 1986). Though these individuals are less likely to progress beyond the second-grade level in academic

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