High School graduate Dan Burke, who has autism, will attend Colby College this fall.

Overcoming Autism. Dan Burke finds his reality and is conquering his world.

Friday, July 12, 2002
By Colin Hickey, Staff Writer
Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Turn to Dan Burke's picture in this year's Winslow High School yearbook and you will find a list of achievements and activities that is considerable by any measure.

Burke, 19, excelled as a student, athlete and actor. He gained considerable attention as host of a weekly commercial radio show — he won a statewide contest to earn the privilege.

This fall he will attend Colby College, a liberal arts school with a national reputation for excellence. Last week, he participated in Boys' State, one of a select number of students throughout Maine given that honor.

By almost every measure, Burke is the all-American boy —a big, strapping, highly motivated, talented winner.

But there is another side to Dan Burke, a side that many have not seen, or have seen only in part, that makes his story all the more intriguing and his success all the more remarkable.

To understand Burke, to appreciate where he is today, you first have to understand where he started.

You have to understand that he was a child who did not truly speak for the first five years of his life.

You have to understand that he used to hide in a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink for hours at a time.

You have to understand that he used to wear winter clothes in the middle of summer and that crowds and loud noises terrified him.

Christine Burke knows this other side of her youngest son. She lived this other side. In Dan's first years, when his condition was so perplexing, Christine Burke took him to five pediatric specialists and got five widely, different diagnoses.

Not surprisingly, she rejected the more disturbing conclusions.

One doctor, however, came to a moderate determination that seemed to have merit: pervasive developmental delay with autistic qualities.

But it was the reality, not the label, that concerned Christine. As the months went by and her son remained silent — no goo-goos, no gah-gahs — the fear intensified: What would become of her son? Where could she find a connection?

"I could feel my child slipping away, and I was desperate to bring him back," she said.

Burke ultimately found the connection — or at least a connection — but she is the last one to paint herself as her son's savior, a rescue person in the land of autism.

"I laugh and say, 'No. He did this all himself.' Because if I take credit, then I have to take blame," she said.

Winslow High School drama teacher Kathy Lauder, a big fan of Dan Burke, supports Christine's theory. Like any good actor, Burke learned to improvise, to overcome obstacles through his intelligence, creativity and a drive that is unrelenting.

"He really is the miracle boy," she said.

The Burke Man Cometh

For the past year, Dan Burke filled the Sunday 5 to 9 p.m. slot for the Portland radio station, WCYY-FM (94.3, 93.9) — his stint as a regular host just recently ended.

The Burke Man Cometh was his on-air moniker. While a variation on the famous play "The Ice Man Cometh," Burke's DJ identity was hardly cool. His act was volume.

"I was loud," Burke said. "I'd get on air at 5 p.m. and pretty much yell at the top of my lungs."

Silent child becomes loudmouth? Autistic misfit becomes commercial success?

How does one explain this metamorphosis? How can a guy who hid under the kitchen sink become the host of his own radio show?

Christine said the explanation really is quite simple: a DJ talks to the masses but all he sees is a microphone, one inanimate object.

Herb Ivy, WCYY program director, said radio can be a haven of sorts for all types.

"They don't know what you look like. They don't know how you dress," he said. "For a regular person, you put them on air, and they are scared to death. But for a person like Dan, he goes for it."

Faces, though, are different than microphones. Faces are harder.

Christine said her son avoided eye contact with other people for much of his childhood. He hated to be in crowds.

Isolation, places like the cabinet under the kitchen sink, served as sanctuaries from a world that was overwhelming and, yet, a world of which he desperately wanted to be a part.

And that is why as a young boy he began to wear a sombrero, a fake beard and pair of nonprescription eyeglasses. Christine said her son used this disguise as a buffer zone, as a way to make the overwhelming manageable.

The radio station gig was a similar circumstance. While he might have an audience that numbered in the thousands and the pressure of handling on-air phone calls, Burke had the security of the studio, a small, peaceful place far removed from listeners.

Dan's radio alias worked much the same way. If the world is threatening, then it makes sense to conceal yourself, to go undercover, whether with a sombrero and fake eyeglasses, or with a false persona.

"Pretty much I made up a lot of stuff," he said. "I came up with a Don King persona kind of thing. I made myself the loudest person you'll ever meet."

Jackson Burke, Dan's older brother, is well versed on his brother's disguises. Jackson, who will be a senior at Dartmouth College this fall, has learned to appreciate his brother's coping skills, and admire his determination to overcome the forces that drive him to be silent and alone.

In a letter recommending that Dartmouth accept Dan as a student, Jackson wrote about this determination:

"I believe this is the source of his greatest strength, his strength of will and character. Where others succumb, Dan perseveres. While it is considered exceptional for an autistic to grow up to function normally in the world, Dan excels. ... Dan has faced challenges that I cannot even begin to understand, but I have rarely seen him discouraged and have never heard him complain."

An Autistic Perspective

Christine, on the other hand, was extremely discouraged during Dan's initial years when, no matter how hard she tried, she could not engage her second son, could not even get him to say "mommy."

"Dan was not responding, and eventually I found myself not speaking to him, and it was like a slap across the face, and I just made myself keep talking to him," she said.

More than that, she decided she would make every effort to see the world through her son's eyes, and that proved one of the keys to unlocking the door to Dan's world.

Christine accepted Dan's autism and developed strategies to deal with the condition. Thus she took to talking to Dan as she washed dishes and he sat hidden away below her, taking comfort in the sound of the water rushing from the faucet.

In time she discovered that Dan was especially attuned to music. To teach him how to spell names, she set the names to song.

She learned, too, about the gifts her son possessed, most notably his remarkable memory.

Winslow High School teacher Mark Pelletier said Dan can name every U.S. president in order of their presidency — and this includes last, first and middle name.

He also is an authority on rock 'n' roll, alternative, jazz, blues and Motown from the 1960s to the present — an ability of great benefit to a radio DJ.

"He is a walking bank of knowledge, and he remembers it all," Pelletier said.

Pelletier loves to tell stories of Dan's comic antics in his class — his Jack Nicholson impersonations are a particular favorite. Still, Pelletier also sees the dichotomy, the comic with autistic qualities.

"He loves being the center of attention, and he will bring it on," Pelletier said. "But he also is in his own world in a way."

Shaping a Self

Christine is convinced that everybody is a little bit autistic at least on occasion. Dan, she said, is just more autistic than most, and he never takes a day off.

For a society that talks of diversity but practices conformity at almost every level, this difference, this quality that sets Dan apart from most, led to more than a few struggles during his childhood.

He had the benefit of parents — his father John is a local doctor — who provided constant support, and as Christine is quick to stress, he had many fine teachers who, rather than puzzle at his peculiarities, delighted in his uniqueness.

Christine said as Dan's language skills developed, his innate intelligence found pathways to surface from his autistic world.

That intelligence coupled with his drive and determination, those qualities that are Dan himself, ultimately is the key to his success: He shaped who he has become, or, perhaps more accurately, he gave definition to the person he has always been.

Winslow High School teacher David Lachapelle, a class adviser for the most recent Winslow graduates, suggested Dan when asked to recommend a student who best could speak for the senior class.

Dan as class spokesman. A remarkable achievement.

But, today, so long removed from those years of silence, the accomplishments do not seem as remarkable; they simply seem the normal doings of a bright, ambitious student.

Even Dan at times has taken this attitude. Those who know him best, know better. They are not fooled.

Occasionally, Christine said she has to remind Dan of what he has overcome and what he must still overcome.

"When he was in eighth grade or a freshman, he told me 'I used to be autistic, but I'm over that now.' And I said to Dan, 'You are not over it. It is not necessarily something that somebody gets rid of.' " Disguises. Personas. Aliases. With Dan, you wonder which personality is the real him. The truth is all the above. There simply is a lot to this guy. And that is no deception.

"I personally have always been myself," he said. "I wouldn't have made it on the air if I hadn't been myself."

Colin Hickey
chickey@centralmaine.com

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