HANDLE's Founder: Judith Bluestone (1936- 2009)

 Judith was born with neurological  challenges and maxillo-facial  irregularities. As an infant she failed to thrive. If such labels had existed in the early 1940s she would have been diagnosed as a child with Level 3 autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and hyperactivity. 

As a child, Judith could not ride a bike. Instead she pedaled her upside down tricycle with her hands, which engaged both hemispheres of her brain. She mechanically repeated words and phrases (echolalia), which created muscle memory of what her lips, tongue, mouth and breath had to do to make a particular sound or word.  She exhibited  behaviors that could have been labeled maladaptive, anti- social, self stimulatory or stereotypic but they were Judith 's best attempts to protect herself as she changed her brain.

 Judith was given a recording of The Story of the Churkendoose. A story written by Ben Ross Berenberg, narrated by Ray Bolger with music by Alec Wilder and orchestra conducted by Mitchell Miller. It is the story of an unusual animal ("part chicken, turkey, duck and goose") who teaches listeners that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and "it depends on how you look at things". She played it over and over and over!