Ellen Gray: Off-kilter characters: TV shows feature kids (and adults) with what looks like Asperger's

PARENTHOOD. 10 p.m. tomorrow, Channel 10.

IT'S A SCENE that gets played out on television pretty regularly these days: Parents are called in to their child's school and told that there might be something not quite right about their kid.

By the end of the hour or half-hour things aren't usually so serious, after all, but, for a moment or two, any parent watching can share in the anxiety we all feel when our children are judged and somehow found wanting.

A not-so-funny thing happens in tomorrow night's premiere of "Parenthood," NBC's often very funny spin-off of Ron Howard's 1989 film. A mother and father (played by Peter Krause and Monica Potter) are called to their son Max's school, and when the hour's over there's still suspected to be a problem with Max (Max Burkholder).

What's more, it has a name: Asperger's syndrome.

Even as mental-health experts debate whether Asperger's, a developmental disorder that often affects social interactions, should continue to be singled out as a diagnosis or classified simply as autism, people with the label are getting more attention from TV. Contestants with Asperger's have competed in CBS' "The Amazing Race" and the CW's "America's Next Top Model," Mary McDonnell guest-starred on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" for three episodes last season as a surgeon with the condition and HBO last month premiered "Temple Grandin," which starred Claire Danes as Grandin, an author and animal behaviorist with Asperger's, to rave reviews.

And though Max may be the only regular TV character this season to actually be diagnosed with Asperger's, he's hardly the only kid who worries his parents.

Brick (Atticus Shaffer), the youngest child on ABC's family sitcom "The Middle," who talks to his backpack and has a habit of repeating - in a stage whisper - the last word he's said, displays behaviors that might catch the attention of a school psychologist (though they also make him the show's most endearing character).

On "Nurse Jackie," which returns to Showtime March 22, Jackie (Edie Falco) and her husband got called in to their daughter's school to be told that Grace (Ruby Jerins) was showing signs of a serious anxiety disorder.

And then there's Luke (Nolan Gould) on ABC's "Modern Family," who's seemed at times to have more in common with "Parenthood's" Max than just a colorful multigenerational family, though Steven Levitan, who created the show with Christopher Lloyd, describes him only as "odd."

"My girls at that age were a lot more mature than my son is at that age. It's just the way boys" develop, he said. "Is there anything wrong with Luke? I just think Luke's an odd kid. I don't think he's dumb," he said of the character, who's been known to get his head caught between the balusters.

Eileen Heisler, who created "The Middle" with longtime writing partner DeAnn Heline, doesn't think that Brick's dumb, either. Quite the contrary.

"We've always said that Brick is clinically quirky," said Heisler in an interview on the show's set in January. "He's not defined as being on the [autistic] spectrum. He's an indefinably quirky kid. He needs a social-skills group. . . . We've always said he's, like so many of these kids, just a brilliant kid who is socially inept

"The spectrum is big, I guess, so you could put him somewhere on it," she said. "But we've never labeled him.

"Brick came about because of my son, who is quirky like Brick. Is he on the spectrum somewhere? I've been told maybe. He's neither this, he's neither that. But he's needed a little boosting," she said, and, like Brick, he's "freaky smart."

Now 10, her son is also "much less Brick-ish than he used to be," but nevertheless "loves Brick. He's the world's Brick expert. I think at the beginning, when we had the whispering my son used to do - he doesn't do it anymore - initially he'd be like 'Oh my God!' but now he likes it," she said.

"The way the backpack [relationship] came about was that my son, when he was in kindergarten, ate lunch by himself. And I said, 'Who did you eat lunch with? Were you lonely?' And he said, 'No, I was fine. I had my backpack to keep me company,' " she said.

Spend a little time online and you can find people with Asperger's syndrome or other forms of autism claiming some TV characters, even when those characters aren't necessarily claiming them. Candidates range from the glaringly obvious, like Sheldon Cooper, the Spock-worshiping scientist whom Jim Parsons plays on CBS' "The Big Bang Theory," and the hyper-logical Temperance Brennan of Fox's "Bones," to the merely suspicious, like the hilarious film buff Abed (Danny Pudi) of NBC's "Community" and Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub), the uber-geek of Fox's "24," whose social deficits are as undeniable as her computer skills. (But, then, who on "24" is actually good with people?)

Though Asperger's was mentioned in "Community's" pilot, the actor who plays Abed is happy that the writers have kept his character's condition vague.

"I think sometimes we're really quick to diagnose things, one way or another. Someone has something, someone doesn't have something - and then you're limited," Pudi said.

"We chose not to diagnose Sheldon," said "Big Bang Theory" executive producer Chuck Lorre, who created the show with Bill Prady.

"We didn't start out by saying, 'Let's write a character with Asperger's,' and we still don't say to ourselves, 'This character has Asperger's,' "said Lee Aronsohn, another of the show's executive producers. "We really wanted to create just a specific type of character who was funny, and people have imposed the 'Wow, that looks somebody with Asperger's.' "

Still, he acknowledged, in Sheldon's world "it's very common, that type of personality."

Emily Deschanel, who plays "Bones' " brilliant Brennan, said that she raised the issue with show creator Hart Hanson early in their discussions of the character. "I thought she seemed like she might have Asperger syndrome. And certainly the character of Zack - Eric Millegan's character - also had those qualities," she said.

"The original idea was that Brennan had Asperger syndrome," said Hanson. "But on a network, we thought, we're not going to do that, we're not going to give the label starting out. Makes people nervous."

Now that the show and the character are well-established, "I can certainly see someone annoying Brennan by insisting that she has Asperger's syndrome," Hanson said. "I'd say she doesn't, that there's something else working there that gives her Asperger's-like" characteristics.

Though the original "Parenthood" included a character with less specific issues, Jason Katims, the executive producer of NBC's version and the father of a 13-year-old son with Asperger's, said that he never considered not naming Max's condition.

"When you make it too vague, you take away the importance of it," said Mount Airy's Holly Robinson Peete, whose family with former Eagles quarterback Rodney Peete includes 12-year-old Rodney Jr., who has "high-functioning" autism. The actress will compete on NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" starting March 14, to raise awareness and money for the fight against autism.

Another mother who's happy that Max has an actual diagnosis is Emily Gerson Saines, executive producer of "Temple Grandin" (and a fan of Katims' "Parenthood").

Though her son, who's 16, functions at a far lower level than Grandin, it's "hugely important" for people with autism and their parents to see themselves depicted on-screen, she said.

"It allows the public at large to be far more tolerant," she said. "You know, for so many of us, when our kids were younger, we would go to the supermarket and people would snicker at us. I literally had people come up to me and say, 'Why can't you control your child?' Sometimes I would turn around and go, 'No, I can't. I'm trying, but I can't.' "

Katims, too, hopes that Max's situation will help other families.

"To me, I want it to feel normal," he said. "I didn't want it to feel like the thing nobody is talking about. What would be worse for me would be to write about it and actually not put a name to it. Because it's not a deep, dark secret. You know, thousands and thousands of people are dealing with it. Speaking as a parent, it has its difficulties and its silver linings and its beauties. And I'm hoping it will take some of the mystery out of it, some of the bad mystery."

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.