LOS ANGELES — On TV screens around the room, Chinese table tennis players are whirling and vaulting, but Betty Stein isn’t watching them.
She’s utterly absorbed in the ball coming right at her, and she nails it — 10, 20, 30 times, shooting it back at her enthusiastic, Ukraine-born coach Bella Livshin.
“Gorgeous!” Livshin cries. “A...
MINNEAPOLIS — It all started with a scientist and 19 autistic children.
Ole Ivar Lovaas, a psychologist at the University of California, wanted to see if he could change the way the children behaved, given enough time and effort. So he lavished them with intensive therapy for 40 hours a week for two years or more.
At the end of...
LOS ANGELES — Heidi Kling is reading in an all-white room. She’s shoeless, but socks protect her feet from the 6 inches of salt that cake the floor. The only objects in the windowless room are four chaises and hand-molded plaster icicles that hang from the ceiling. If there were a Yeti in the room, you would swear you were on the...
